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My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

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Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#151

Post by hcfman »

hcfman wrote: post #141

Doesn't this happen all the time with Ultralytics yolo code? They use an AGPL license, which to my understand means that anything that links with this code also becomes AGPL. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but is the license also viral if there's a network connection involved? i.e. I run the code in a container with a little network interface added ? And yet Microsoft have release code with different licenses that m…

I really like the work that Microsoft did with Pytorch Wildlife but not brave enough to trust the MIT license they put on their code that uses Ultralytics code and all attempts to check if it was okay for them to change the licenses seem to indicate that they may not do this.

Love to know for sure. Maybe someone from Ultralytics can point out their view on this?

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#152

Post by bawolff »

tombert wrote: post #81
TheChaplain wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. Really? If you find a piece of proprietary software does basically the same thing as yours, and the binaries contains the same strings/artwork, then it's reasonable to make a legal case of it. You can even contact FSF and they'll take it further.

If you can directly prove a violation dead to rights (or have enough cause for a discovery request) and you have money for legal defense, sure. A lot of open source stuff is libraries and utilities though that is pretty entrenched in the code. It is hard to even find out about a violation, let alone prove anything. Imagine I came up with a new algorithm to do Fourier Transforms 10% faster than FFTW (or whatever the c…

> Imagine I came up with a new algorithm to do Fourier Transforms 10% faster than FFTW (or whatever the current market leader is) and make a library and I release it as GPL. A company could fairly easily just import it to whatever project they’re doing, and it would be extremely difficult for me to prove anything, especially if I don’t have any obvious things like strings in there.

If you're doing something algorithmically different and unique, presumably that would show up in the assembly.

> That’s not even taking into account that it would be relatively easy for a corporation to just pay a junior engineer to do a direct “port” of the library to another language and pretending it’s their own independent work.

Important to keep in mind that copyright is not patents. If they are just stealing the "idea" of your algorithmic improvement, that probably isn't even a GPL violation. (This isn't fully right as they would probably have to use a clean-room design to avoid copyright infringement. My point is more that such a situation is pretty muddy and might actually be allowed)

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#153

Post by pghatedphones »

h4ck_th3_pl4n3t wrote: post #131
Disposal8433 wrote: post #75

And it has the same fake excuse as usual "Since this was our first OSS project, we didn’t realize at first." He sure discovered this new open source thing and it's very confusing. It's not like it's almost 40 years old at that point. I'll never understand people who lie like toddlers.

This incompetence excuse puts YC in a bad spotlight too, because it makes them look like they are funding people with exact zero software development experience.

Isn't YC supposed to offer guidance and sage advice, not just be a cash machine for naive young developers?

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#154

Post by breakingcups »

sohzm wrote: post #39
alberth wrote: post #38

Maybe I’m looking at the wrong repos but both appear to be GPL-3 (or maybe it was relicensed back to original GPL-3?) https://github.com/sohzm/cheating-daddy https://github.com/pickle-com/glass

yeah he changed it rn https://github.com/pickle-com/glass/commit/5c462179acface889...

Then rewrote the history and force-pushed so it never happened.

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#155

Post by close04 »

lynx97 wrote: post #143
sreekanth850 wrote: post #117

YC should put integrity and ethics of founders as a key variable for funding.

> integrity and ethics How do you evaluate that?

The easiest way to check for integrity and ethics is if the startups YC finances routinely run afoul of YC's ethics code or the law.

If YC has no ethics code, that's your answer right there. If they do but it fails to mention basic things like lying, cheating, deceiving especially when done intentionally, bingo again. If breaking the law isn't an automatic termination of the collaboration, it takes you to the same conclusion. If YC explicitly supports the startups when knowing about these problems, or implicitly by skirting due diligence and turning a blind eye, or accepts startups having no commitment to an ethics code, then ethics or integrity are not core values, or even are completely absent.

There are more nuanced topics and methods but if it doesn't pass the smell test with the basic ones, it won't pass it with any.

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#157

Post by crystaln »

ipsum2 wrote: post #90

This is the second time in less than a year something similar has happened. Previously, a different YC company (Pear AI) copied Continue, changed the licenses, and "launched". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707495 I wonder if Pear AI is dead or pivoted, their open source repos have not been updated since May.

Probably just went closed source.

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#158

Post by bawolff »

tombert wrote: post #68
rfl890 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if you're writing open source because you want to write open source, then none of this matters. If you are worried about corporations stealing your work, that should drive you away from OSS. OSS should stay "hobbyist" for the individual developer.

Sure but it sort of devalues labor. If a corporation is stealing your OSS code (and violating a license) then that implies that they think your code has value, they might have paid a person to write that code but instead some hobbyist built it for free and a corporation steals it. A few months ago, I made a pull request to LMAX Disruptor, which was merged. I was initially excited because even if my PR was simple it’s…

> But after a few minutes it occurred to me that I just did free labor for a for-profit trading company. If they merged in my code then must have thought it had some value, and I decided to dedicate my time to saving this multi million dollar company some money.

If you're not ok with that possibility than you probably shouldn't be participating in open source.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. Its up to each individual to decide how they want to spend there time. There are pros and cons to open source, and you have to weigh how you feel about them yourself.

However, its not like this is some secret trick. Its the central tenant of Open Source (esp. When using that name instead of Free software). It should be very clear that this is happening. Its the entire point.

It kind of feels a bit like someone who doesn't like oranges, eats oranges, and then are surprised that they taste like oranges. By all means if you don't like oranges don't eat them, but if you knew you didn't like them why did you eat it in the first place?

Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

#159

Post by crystaln »

bawolff wrote: post #145
tombert wrote: post #60

Things like this are why I have become disillusioned with Open Source, and why latest projects have been closed source. The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. If a corporation is selling an optimized binary, then it can be almost impossible to prove that there was any violation of the GPL without viewing the source.

> If a corporation is selling an optimized binary, then it can be almost impossible to prove that there was any violation of the GPL without viewing the source. I think you can notice that output looks similar, error messages are similar, etc. If the program is non-trivial its usually pretty obvious if its a copy or a reimplementation. If it sounds plausible, presumably you could sue and read the source in discovery…

Being obvious to a developer poking at a product is quite disparate from successfully bringing a lawsuit involving source discovery.
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