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My open source project got stolen by a HN user

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Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#21

Post by simne »

Sorry disclaimer, I'm too lazy to immediately check everything myself, but will, and will write confirmed or not-confirmed.

So, I read comments and few surface details. What I note:

1. Original project is MIT licensed. MIT only forcing, IF you use it, to make special page with mentions of all MIT licensed code used in project and nothing more.

2. ANY software project could being divided to separate independent parts, which will be then rewritten based on clean room methodology, and after this you could just remove ANY mentions of MIT licensed code which was used earlier. As I understand, person who copied your project, rewritten all your code himself and NOW he have not any your code in project.

Unfortunately, now you only can do something much exceed properties of your tween, so he will have to race with you or you'll win.

Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#23

Post by AndreVitorio »

oneepic wrote: post #22

I think you're right that he stole your work without proper attribution. I'd suggest reporting his Reddit thread(s) if you haven't already. Or start a new thread like this HN one.

Thanks for the suggestion. I did create a thread on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/17wujjc/my_open_sou...

Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#25

Post by paxys »

It seems to me that they forked your (MIT-licensed) project and are now more successful than you at marketing it and getting contributors. Yes not giving credit to you is a dick move, but it isn't a requirement of the license. Words like "stolen" are out of place and just make you sound bitter to be honest. This is just how open source works.

Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#26

Post by skulk »

paxys wrote: post #25

It seems to me that they forked your (MIT-licensed) project and are now more successful than you at marketing it and getting contributors. Yes not giving credit to you is a dick move, but it isn't a requirement of the license. Words like "stolen" are out of place and just make you sound bitter to be honest. This is just how open source works.

> Yes not giving credit to you is a dick move, but it isn't a requirement of the license.

Actually, it IS a requirement of the MIT license: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

From what I understand, the person OP is referring to did not include the copyright notice, and provided zero attribution until pressed.

> This is just how open source works.

No, open source works because people believe that even if their work is being used for free, their contribution is recognized. People like who the OP is referring to chill that sentiment and do immense harm to the "open source" ethos.

Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#27

Post by ricardobeat »

AndreVitorio wrote: post #18
ricardobeat wrote: post #15

I checked the source code in both projects and it seems that a fair amount of rework has happened already. They don’t really look alike beyond bits of structure and the basic layout. This is exactly the intent of a MIT license. The only unfair aspect is that they seem to have removed the original license notice, which is a requirement. Their project is MIT licensed too, so if you like what they’re doing you can play…

The /source directory in his repo is 90% our code. But look, I'm not mad he is using our project, it's open source after all. I'm happy it is and people can do whatever with the code. What I'm exposing here is an attempt at making people believe he is the author of said code. Not someone who took 90% of a project and is building something with it, but that he wrote the entirety of the code.

This a comparison of the src folders using Meld: https://postimg.cc/sM2HDP7G

In the scrollbars on the right, blue is modified, green is new, black is equal. Only a handful of hooks, helpers and simple components are still the same. 90% sounds quite far from reality.

Not that I think the lack of credit given to the original project isn’t scummy, but… it’s just someone being an asshole, not much you can do about that.

Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#28

Post by Tiberium »

For more context, the author of the fork seemed to have stepped in to "answer" some of the concerns in the Reddit thread by OP, and some of it is just plain hilarious.

https://www.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/17wujjc/my_open_sou...

Claiming that the project is "a copy of a copy" because the author forgot to switch the license from the template MIT which had "Vercel" in it - https://www.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/17wujjc/comment/k9j...

Claiming code (!) contributions to the project, while there is only a single commit by him (fixing typos) and he has an unresolved conversation in a single GH issue - https://www.reddit.com/r/nextjs/comments/17wujjc/comment/k9j... (the commit is https://github.com/avitorio/outstatic/commit/442a3189697540e..., issue https://github.com/avitorio/outstatic/issues/73)

Re: My open source project got stolen by a HN user

#30

Post by v3ss0n »

In the age of LLM , MIT credit become irrelevant because I could just let AI digest whole repository and let it spit out code that is unrecognizable to yours and everyone can just claim - this code is generated by AI, or they wrote them. AI not gonna give credit at all.
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