People begging YC to "do the right thing" don't understand that this is the exact behavior that VCs love and reward.
My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
401–410 of 536 posts
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I submitted a PR to fix a bug in cloud-init a while ago. It was in my interest to do so, because it means I benefit from fixed packages in the Linux distributions I use. This saves me a ton of time in not having to maintain my own packages with my fix included. If it helps Canonical make money, then it’s no skin off my nose because I still got the benefit I wanted. I’m not going around fixing bugs that don’t affect m…
That’s why I made the patch to Disruptor as well, because I needed the change and I didn’t want to maintain it. I’m not saying that that’s valueless but I still think programmers should not be giving free labor to corporations.
Canonical is at least a little better since they’re a much more FOSS-first company as opposed to a trading corporation, but my opinion still is the same with them.
Also, completely unrelated, if anyone at Canonical is reading this, your hiring process is terrible. Making people write nine-page essays about how smart they were in high school and then forcing them to take some absurd pop-psychology IQ tests and then multiple dedicated projects is insane. Whomever designed the interview process there should genuinely be ashamed of themselves and consider literally any other career.
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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 cr…
> 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.
At least in Germany at the time of GDPR, the startups (and also bigger companies) were struggling with the insane amount of compliance requirements, and the uncertainty how to actually interpret these legal requirements also in terms of federal law.
In other words: these (German) companies (and startups) clearly obeyed the spirit of these, as you say, 40 year old laws, but struggled hard with the formal red-tape requirements of GDPR.
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#404Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wouldn’t this still be accomplished with a freeware model? That way hobbyists could still get your stuff for free but a corporation would have a slightly more difficult time directly stealing it.
when i started using computer i jumped to linux ecosystem in a month, and have been using it primarily until very recently i personally dont feel good using things that are not opensource, yeah i use closed source softwares but i try to limit them
I don’t have a problem with using open source software, I run NixOS with Sway and tmux and Vim and Typst and a million other FOSS things.
I just don’t feel like directly contributing to helping a corporation make money without being paid. I have a finite amount of time on this planet, I don’t need to provide unpaid labor to make Mark Zuckerberg richer.
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
What do you think a "startup incubator" does exactly?
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#406Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
>They’ll never forget this experience
Right. They'll learn to be more discreet about it next time. Do you really believe "I got flamed on the Internet" is a memory that will counterbalance "I can make millions out of selling stolen code if I don't get caught" ? (especially considering that you flag such comments, therefore their shielding their poor egos from seeing mean words.)
>these sorts of things are often terminal for a company.
Starting a company is not hard. Thousands are created, and destroyed each day. If they're smart, under someone else's name. Maybe, maybe one person will see and think to look at the CEO, remember what he did and potentially try to warn people about it, and they'll be promptly ignored. Helped by people like you, under the guise of muh guidelines
>“Roasting” is one word for something that can be described in far more serious terms
I'd love to hear those terms. Because the worst that comes to mind that could apply is "disparaging", and unfortunately for them, "being mean on the internet" isn't something they can or will sue over.
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't use LLMs to filter out participants and I expect candidates not to use LLMs to cheat.
Some first/introductory interviews are now "powered" by AI. As in, the interviewee gets an AI bot that evaluates them. I'd not be surprised if this takes over and becomes standard.
Don't candidates also get a say? If a company asked me to jump through that hoop I'd have a simple one-word response. "No"
If enough good candidates have that reaction, it will become a prestige marker for a company to not use AI screening to give them access to the best candidates
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#408Earlier 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…
>someone’s actions turns to trawling over someone’s backstory
"using daddy's money" when talking about a VC funded founder is such a safe bet that if Berkshire Hathaway could invest in it, they would.
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#409The clone now has more stars on GitHub than the original work, CheatingDaddy. What's funny is that in a week, most likely nobody will remember that the code was stolen, thus Pickle will probably be fine with their new, shiny, popular project, which will be featured in GitHub Trends. It's the same with another Soham, who was moonlighting for years. I would not be surprised if he starts a company soon, given the fame h…
It's all about marketing sadly. Marketing and connections. This industry has been full of theft for years.
Re: My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
I think you are so comprehensively wrong that there’s not enough commonality between our worldviews for me to even try to convince you