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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]

#391

Post by Jon_Lowtek »

whilenot-dev wrote: post #361
Nextgrid wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the tech sector moved so fast that the prevailing law couldn't keep up That's an extremely charitable interpretation. A more realistic interpretation is that the law was up to date, just that enforcement couldn't keep up because 1) nobody expected such a brazen level of breaking the law and 2) justice doesn't really apply when you have enough capital.

> A more realistic interpretation is that the law was up to date While I wouldn't disagree with your sentiment, just keep in mind that the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) got implemented 2018.

Little known fact: GDPR replaced the Data Protection Directive (95/46/EC) from 1995 which itself replaced the Convention for the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data, written in 1981. Now if you compare these three, there is enough details to get an undergrads degree in law, but on the high level the tenor did not change much. Those who were struggling in 2018 to meet GDPR criteria before the grace period of two years ended were most likely not struggling with details, but in blatant violation of almost 40 year old rules. Well one of the details probably mattered: the fines went up considerably.

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

#392

Post by qualeed »

tomhow wrote: post #390
qualeed wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes it's really surprising what comments you guys push back on and which ones you don't comment on. (Yes, I know, you can't see everything, etc.). I suspect it might be because this one wasn't dressed up enough. While it is a personal attack, it is pretty tame compared to (non-flagged) comments I see here every day. I especially don't see it as a swipe at their family. Yet this is a pretty strong rebuke. While…

There’s something about the point when anger at someone’s actions turns to trawling over someone’s backstory in order to attack/demean them as a person that crosses a line for me; I’ve always pushed back on it whenever I’ve seen it, on HN and elsewhere. People doing it and supporting it always think it’s “not that bad”; nobody likes to think of themselves as doing or supporting something bad. Any time you see egregio…

>People doing it and supporting it always think it’s “not that bad”; nobody likes to think of themselves as doing “bad”.

So we're clear, because this implies I'm "supporting" it, I'm not. Just saying that this is more tame than many personal attacks I've seen, with a stronger response than I've seen (when there is a response). And, in this case, that gives off some bad optics/more ammo to people who are critical about when & why you moderate.

Without moderator transparency (which I've read the reasoning for, and can agree with!), optics is really all you've got.

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

#393

Post by acedTrex »

bayindirh wrote: post #261
xoralkindi wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will push opensource/ free software hackers to close source their code because it is being used to feed LLMs. Similar to how allot of hardcore free software proponents don't use Github. Is closed source the future?

> Is closed source the future? No. I don't believe that. I personally want my code to outlast me and help people in the future, but I don't want allow anyone to just scrape it, strip its license and use for whatever. I use (A)GPLv3+, because I believe in "Freedom for the user", not "Freedom for the developer" which permissive licenses provide. My code is not free labor for anyone. It has conditions attached.

This will not stop the AI companies from using it in their training data.

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

#394

Post by aleph_minus_one »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #356
JonChesterfield wrote: post #246

"Fair enough. Since this was our first OSS project, we didn’t realize at first. We’ve now revised it. Thanks for your contribution." We didn't notice that we copied your codebase, changed the name then pretended to have built it in four days? Good grief.

It does seem really shady to not even offer a sincere apology.

> It does seem really shady to not even offer a sincere apology.

At least they attempted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44461271

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

#395

Post by tombert »

bruce511 wrote: post #372
tombert wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I think people should be properly compensated for their labor instead of directly donating it to a mega corporation I should choose a “different career”? Do you realize how utterly insane that sounds? You’re free to do what you want. I just find a lot of the entire FOSS process kind of exploitative and why I have become disillusioned with it. ETA: To be clear, I have a fair active GitHub and I still post stuf…

Oh, think people should be properly compensated for their labor. And I'm still programming. But lots of programmers don't get properly compensated. Some by choice, some by external factors. I'm saying that's a reality. How you feel about other programmers and the choices they make for themselves is up to you. Clearly there's no obligation to post anything yo public repositories, send the vast majority of programmers…

I can’t tell other programmers what to do, nor would I even if I could.

I am merely explaining why I choose not to partake in FOSS when I think it’s exploitive. People are free to disagree, or not care, and that’s obviously fine, but I choose to not directly contribute to it.

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

#397

Post by aleph_minus_one »

mathiaspoint wrote: post #370
Nextgrid wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YC is the company that (to this day!) has Yotta - a borderline scam to take advantage of financially-illiterate people - on their website after the whole thing has completely blown up and most customers lost their savings: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/yotta Oh, and now they have their own rendition of the "Aviator" game often advertised by unregulated Eastern-European online casinos: https://members.withyott…

Did you not understand what YC was? They're essentially an investment bank that doesn't accept new clients. They make money, they're not a charity. Quality only matters insofar as it drives sales and doesn't create liabilities.

> Did you not understand what YC was? They're essentially an investment bank that doesn't accept new clients.

They rather sell themselves as early-stage startup incubator.

See https://www.ycombinator.com/

"We help founders at their earliest stages regardless of their age."

"We improve the success rate of our startups."

"We give startups a huge fundraising advantage."

and https://www.ycombinator.com/about

"The overall goal of YC is to help startups really take off. They arrive at YC at all different stages. Some haven’t even started working yet, and others have been launched for a year or more. But whatever stage a startup is at when they arrive, our goal is to help them to be in dramatically better shape 3 months later."

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

#398

Post by tomhow »

Fraterkes wrote: post #333
tomhow wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Playing with daddy's money Personal attacks like this are not ok. Sure, criticize their actions, but don't parlay that into this kind of personal swipe at the individuals and their families; that's when the line is crossed from valid critique of actions to nasty mob pile-on, and that's never ok here. Not that it should matter but as far as I can tell, the Pickle founder/CEO grew up and studied in Korea, and we have…

This guy did something very immoral and callous, and will seemingly face no real consequences for it. Roasting him in the comments of the site of the people paying him is somehow overkill?

None of us knows exactly what this specific person did or what their motivation, intention or understanding of the situation was. We only know what was in the company’s code that was published, and we know what they’ve done since to try and address it.

“Roasting” is one word for something that can be described in far more serious terms. It’s against the HN guidelines and the guidelines still have to be upheld to some degree.

It’s also false that they will face no real consequences. They’ll never forget this experience and these sorts of things are often terminal for a company.

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

#399

Post by dahart »

xandrius wrote: post #291
dheerajvs wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an interviewer, I'm seeing a huge increase in proportion of candidates cheating surreptitiously during video interviews. And it's becoming difficult to suspect any wrong-doing unless you're very watchful by looking for academic responses to questions. Why would anyone encourage building such a tool, I can't fathom.

Probably you've been out of the getting hired game but I had a glimpse of it last year: absolutely terrible. When I started you'd send a mail to the company directly about a position, you'd go to the office, have a short interview, meet the team and they'll let you know. That's it. Now it's 2 rounds of HR bs, 3 layers of tech interviews, then meet the CEO/CTO/etc. And then references and then a final "chat". And you…

I actually like your idea of a probationary hire, but you can see this is just an even longer extended interview, right? If companies were to adopt this model en masse, they would over-hire and then drop most people after the first 2 weeks, and you’d be out looking for another job, having wasted even more time than 5 rounds of interviews, and being unable to interview for multiple jobs at the same time.

Software interviews and hiring have definitely changed over time, and I know it’s harder right now, but I think we’re seeing the past with slightly rose-tinted glasses here. It was never only just one short interview, there were applications and emails and phone screens. In my career, I’ve always had multiple interviews and technical discussions during job applications, even back in the 90s. Getting hired, for me, has always taken several weeks end to end, if not longer.

There are a bunch of reasons interviews are getting harder, and people trying to game the system and trying to cheat are one of them, a big one. Think about it from the company’s perspective: what would you do if the volume of applications you got started far exceeding the number of positions available, and an increasing percentage of the applications you got were people unqualified for the positions but adept at pretending? More face time vetting before hiring seems like the only reasonable answer.

Other reasons why interviews are getting harder is that software jobs are more competitive now, and possibly relative pay has gone up. If interviewing was easier back in the day (and I agree that it was), it’s because there wasn’t as much competition.

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