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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

#61

Post by hoofhearted »

solardev wrote: post #7
gt565k wrote: post #3

Well, your license gave them permission to pretty much do anything. As nefarious as it may be, it is not illegal. https://github.com/avitorio/outstatic/blob/canary/license.md

It's not really about the law either, it's just a total dick move. They could've approached the OP about being co maintainers, or simply say that it's a forked version with improvements, or whatever. No need to steal credit and impersonate the OP.

In high-school, I got suspended a number of times for playing around with the school computers and stuff lol.

We didn’t grow up with a lot of money, so I didn’t get to play with fancy systems until school.

The things that I got in trouble for in school are now the same things that I make a living on; protecting apps from younger versions of me lol.

Some colleagues asked me before “but who would be dumb enough to try and log into a sensitive system?”.

My reply would be a naive 16 year old high schooler who doesn’t realize what they are doing, or the skill set that they may harness.

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

#62

Post by AndreVitorio »

hoofhearted wrote: post #58
Tiberium wrote: post #28

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/17…

I had also been working to resolve a number of major issues within Outstatic such as licensing and GDPR concerns with the author himself privately; as to not disclose major issues on a public forum like that from out of respect. I appreciate and understand your feelings. What changes or updates can I make based on your feedback?

https://dub.sh/code-theft

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

#63

Post by hoofhearted »

AndreVitorio wrote: post #62
hoofhearted wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had also been working to resolve a number of major issues within Outstatic such as licensing and GDPR concerns with the author himself privately; as to not disclose major issues on a public forum like that from out of respect. I appreciate and understand your feelings. What changes or updates can I make based on your feedback?

https://dub.sh/code-theft

I apologize for my end of the drama. I never meant any harm or anything nefarious, and I 100% never intended to come off as stealing.

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

#64

Post by hoofhearted »

AndreVitorio wrote: post #45
meiraleal wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't see he claiming he developed your project. He uses it and developed a solution on top of it. What do you want from people using your code to compose other projects, pay you royalties? Make an altar for you?

What about this? https://www.reddit.com/r/developersIndia/comments/14m3evc/i_... One of many examples...

Get over yourself already

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

#65

Post by hoofhearted »

skulk wrote: post #26
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…

And if you open source work is being used by someone to generate revenue for themselves; then they should be a good open source community member and give back to the root project with contributions, community engagement, promo, collaborations, and even paying them sponsorships and donations.

I don’t think you have a full understand of the situation.

I am open to discussing it further with the community and resolving this unneeded gripe.

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

#66

Post by AndreVitorio »

hoofhearted wrote: post #63
AndreVitorio wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://dub.sh/code-theft

I apologize for my end of the drama. I never meant any harm or anything nefarious, and I 100% never intended to come off as stealing.

Hey Brandon,

I don't want to keep coming back to this.

I know you never intended to come off as stealing, thieves don't want their theft to be discovered. Unfortunately, seeing how you continued to lie after being exposed this apology feels like too little too late. If a sincere apology, admitting your wrong doing and attempt to hide any connection to Outstatic, had been written in the beginning of this whole ordeal, I'm sure this wouldn't have taken the proportions it took.

I'm not saying what you've done is unforgivable, you made a mistake, but it's important to come clean.

I hope one day you see that what you've done is wrong and that this whole situation was brought up because you tried taking credit for something you didn't create.

Don't think I've enjoyed any of this. To the contrary, I wish I never had to write about this, but I couldn't let you take credit for the work of Outstatic's contributors.

I hope that in the future you only take credit for things you create, and if you use someone's work, do give credit where it's due. This will avoid a lot of stress for you and those who's work you are benefiting from.

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

#67

Post by hoofhearted »

AndreVitorio wrote: post #66
hoofhearted wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I apologize for my end of the drama. I never meant any harm or anything nefarious, and I 100% never intended to come off as stealing.

Hey Brandon, I don't want to keep coming back to this. I know you never intended to come off as stealing, thieves don't want their theft to be discovered. Unfortunately, seeing how you continued to lie after being exposed this apology feels like too little too late. If a sincere apology, admitting your wrong doing and attempt to hide any connection to Outstatic, had been written in the beginning of this whole ordeal,…

What’s your goal here mate? To teach me some life lesson or something?

You are coming off as a bit controlling and narcissistic. It’s a bit creepy that you befriended me on discord just to capture screenshots to use against me on your blog, started following and cyber stalking the contributors to my project. I bit more creepy that you went behind me online and made posts “warning” the public about me.

I didn’t do anything wrong. I forked the Outstatic project, which had the Vercel copyright MIT license at the time of forking, and I went with that. There was no author or entity mention in the license, so what was I supposed to do exactly?

I didn’t steal anything, and you are kind of just making up your own rules regarding open source software and giving credit because I didn’t fit in your little perfect world of open source software.

I was not aware that I had to also run any of my videos or social media posts by you first for permission before posting.

You never actually confronted me about any sort of concerns or violations, nor have you given me any chance to make updates or modifications to suit your complaints.

You have instead been on a social media campaign spreading drama and knocking me down to push your own product up.

What kind of credit are you looking for exactly?

https://www.quora.com/If-someone-doesnt-put-my-MIT-license-i...

https://pitt.libguides.com/openlicensing/MIT#:~:text=Like%20....

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

#68

Post by sydbarrett74 »

eviks wrote: post #38
sydbarrett74 wrote: post #11

Relevant portion below, taken from this page ( https://dev.to/sadeedpv/someone-copied-my-code-on-github-and... ): 'With the MIT license, you should really also put your copyright and license notices at the top of each source file in a comment in addition to the license file in the repo. This way if someone uses one or more files but not entire repo, your copyright notice and license declaration stays with your code,…

No way, especially with bigger licenses that are hard-breaked, it's such a wasteful tax on readers' attention to have the first page of every file be some legal garbage And the risk of copy&pasting just the code someone needs (it's not always/mostly at a file level) doesn't disappear

That 'legal garbage' is what reduces ambiguity.

As far as a tax on the reader, the reader is free to scan past the copyright section.

Your argument is vacuous.

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