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No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

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Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#251

Post by nmfisher »

roenxi wrote: post #161
3pt14159 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't want GPL. I want a license that prevents unpaid use by any entity that has any stakeholder worth more than a billion USD. That's it. That's all I want. MIT-Billionaires. Want to take funding from A16Z? That's a million a year for the license or something that maybe scales with a market cap just to level the playing field between a funded startup and Apple Computers. Don't get me wrong, I love Apple, but I don…

> I want a license that prevents unpaid use by any entity that has any stakeholder worth more than a billion USD. That is an arbitrary criteria, and you'll end up with software being written by Apple Development LLC, the loss-making shell company that Apple uses to do all it's development. If you want something other than the GPL you can use it but don't be surprised when people commercialise your software at scale,…

I mean, this is a fairly trivial loophole to close if you have a lawyer who knows what they're doing.

In fact, you don't even need to close the loophole. You just need to make FAANG employees pause long enough to worry that they might not comply, deterring them from using said library.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#252

Post by puranjay »

echelon wrote: post #21

Seriously. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? Apple is telling us we can't run our own software on their goddamned devices, yet they built their empire on open source. Look at Facebook, Google, Amazon. They've extracted all the blood they can and given us back scraps. AWS is repackaged software you pay more for. Yes, it's…

The internet is now positively a nasty place. Everyone is optimizing for "engagement" which essentially equates to "controversial content". You can't find any genuine advice because Google has been gamed to the point where top 50 pages for any query are affiliate pages.

Forums and the communities they fostered are dead. Their replacement, Reddit, has a structure that favors the hive mind.

There are ads everywhere and they swing between downright creepy (ads about what you were searching for an hour ago) to completely awful (semi-pornographic Taboola/Outbrain ads). When they're neither of these things, they are just plainly deceptive (sponsored content).

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#253

Post by D2187645 »

aboringusername wrote: post #34
echelon wrote: post #21

Seriously. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? Apple is telling us we can't run our own software on their goddamned devices, yet they built their empire on open source. Look at Facebook, Google, Amazon. They've extracted all the blood they can and given us back scraps. AWS is repackaged software you pay more for. Yes, it's…

[this comment was deleted as HN doesn't pay me to contribute to the discussion]

This is deeply insightful.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#254

Post by rusk »

majewsky wrote: post #250
rusk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is wrong with saying “all rights reserved. You are free to use this software for educational and nonprofit purposes but once you start to make money off it you must request permission in writing” - I’ve seen a few licences like this. I guess the down sides are it might send some people elsewhere and you might be on your own trying to enforce it in court.

> educational and nonprofit purposes > once you start to make money So if a nonprofit uses that software to sell services (they gotta fund their expenses after all), does that count? Seriously. With vague phrasing like this, you're gonna have a bad time. Contracts are that verbose for a reason.

That’s why it’s all rights reserved. If you want to use it to make money you have to ask me. In the scenario you describe is probably say that’s okay, but like I say it’s up to me and only me, at the end of the day.

This of course means it’s not open to the kind of free-form open collaboration that typifies Open Source but if anything this just goes to show how more restrictive licences such as GPL actually promote innovation.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#255

Post by ralfd »

j15t wrote: post #195
naniwaduni wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPLv4 cannot exist . The GPL was a clever hack the first time it became popular, but it is fundamentally a singleton that cannot be instantiated more than once. Not like we didn't try.

I'm curious, why not?

For projects with copy-left license one has to contact all contributors and ask for their permission to relicense:

https://opensource.stackexchange.com/questions/33/how-can-a-...

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#256

Post by D2187645 »

makerofthings wrote: post #242
drran wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5. Do nothing. - Die poor

6. Get a job that pays the bills, write code in your spare time for the joy of writing code, publish code as PD to help others learn. Maybe blog about it. Die happy.

7. Get a job that pays the bills, write code in your spare time for the joy of writing code, or not write any code in your spare time at all. Die happy.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#257

Post by echelon »

puranjay wrote: post #252
echelon wrote: post #21

Seriously. What's the point of open source if companies just steal it, build billion dollar industries on top, and then lock everything down? Apple is telling us we can't run our own software on their goddamned devices, yet they built their empire on open source. Look at Facebook, Google, Amazon. They've extracted all the blood they can and given us back scraps. AWS is repackaged software you pay more for. Yes, it's…

The internet is now positively a nasty place. Everyone is optimizing for "engagement" which essentially equates to "controversial content". You can't find any genuine advice because Google has been gamed to the point where top 50 pages for any query are affiliate pages. Forums and the communities they fostered are dead. Their replacement, Reddit, has a structure that favors the hive mind. There are ads everywhere and…

I really hate the internet now.

I used to love it so much. It's what taught me my current career and brought me financial independence.

If I could press a button and erase Apple, Google, Facebook, and Twitter from existence I would. It's all trash.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#258

Post by nevon »

skc wrote: post #135
mytailorisrich wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not complaining about use, he's complaining about support. This is not a licensing issue. He is frustrated that companies that use his software for their business raise support and feature requests and expect him to work on them for free again and again.

Do they really expect him to work on them? I'm 100% sure they know that open source doesn't guarantee that and that he's well within his rights to ignore their support requests if he feels like doing something else.

It's not about organizations _demanding_ that you do work for them for free, it's the constant _expectation_ of it. I experience it myself quite often where users of my software ask about timelines for bug fixes or new features, but very rarely offer to chip in and certainly never to sponsor the work.

Of course these organizations have no way to force me to do anything, but it is emotionally draining to constantly have people expect you to.

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#259

Post by SomeoneFromCA »

erinnh wrote: post #127
SomeoneFromCA wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Open Source has nothing to do with Free Software. There is a plenty of OSS products which are not free to use.

Can you give an example, because Im not sure what you mean exactly.

OpenPose

Re: No More Free Work from Marak: Pay Me or Fork This

#260

Post by ilaksh »

lacker wrote: post #28

I empathize with the sentiment, but if you want to get paid for your open source work, surely it would work better to set up a Patreon and point people to it, rather than write "send me a six figure contract or fork this!" in a GitHub issue. It's also weird to use a license that explicitly lets Fortune 500 companies use the code for free, and then write that you don't want them to do so in the issue. Just change the…

If you read the thread there is a link to a tweet. He had an apartment fire and lost just about everything. That is one of the things that is motivating this.

It makes complete sense to make a case in a project where there are a lot of requests for work and many companies using it.

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