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AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

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Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because all the author wanted was credit, and there's no appropriate license for that. The 4 clause BSD license has dropped out of favor for several good reasons and nothing else has taken its place.

You know that licenses are able to be written and rewritten right? If someone wanted attribution, someone could hire a lawyer and make a license (or make an edit/fork of an existing license) that does what someone needs. Giving attribution (and monetary compensation) to the lawyers who make open source licensing function is also a thing.

I'm not sure most companies would touch software with a nonstandard license like that though.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#82
Guy writes some open source code and puts a license on it saying others can use it as they please. Someone else uses it. Guy goes on Twitter to complain someone used it without credit. In response to rant on Twitter someone points out that there actually is acknowledgement in the code. So in the end, they used it and gave him credit. Guy is like, oops, well that’s cool.

Sigh.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#84

Are there open source licenses that specifically ban major cloud providers from using software and letting others use it on Apache 2 terms? Specially license tailored against every one of them, by name?

AGPL tries to do this but it's otherwise similar to GPL rather than Apache 2.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#85
post #42

There are some replies in this thread that misunderstood the content of Tim Nolet's twitter post. (Probably because the short headline has pitchfork raising overtones.) - He's not complaining that Amazon forked his code with Apache license. He admits he also uses other open source with permissive licenses - He just thought it would be nice/courteous/polite/etc if Amazon acknowledge/recognized/credited/mentioned/thank…

Ok, we should fork at convenience without taking care how was made something. Because "the company" only takes care on your LICENSE file and fu.. the maintainers or collaborators on it. If we always come with excuses like "Oh, wait but it's not specified somewhere I can copy, appropriate it and sell it as mine". Fu..! Because looks like we need to protect* our self of companies instead of trust them. So OSS doesn't make sense. So now turns out that there are no people managing decisions like this. Come on, credits are not a fu..ing problem and are free of cost!

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#87
post #59

Looks like they did give some attribution in the NOTICES.txt https://twitter.com/maxibanki/status/1317071448322789376

Yeah buts not visible to the enduser or be rewarded in any way. You have to download the CRX (Chrome extension) file yourself, extract it and then you could see the content of the NOTICES.txt...

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's surely a space between "perfectly acceptable" and "illegal"? I don't like this idea that you have no right to complain about something if you haven't specifically banned it in a legally enforceable license.

In this case, the author can set out what they think is acceptable in their license terms. Attribution costs nothing to the user - so if you want it, stick it in your license. People should be able to comfortably use software within the bounds of the license without worrying about the author coming along and then shaming them for not complying with an additional set of implicit constraints. Yes, it would have been ni…

Look.. going back up the thread and the tweet.

There has to be daylight between legal "fault" or obligation and courtesy. The author isn't going on a tirade, he made a quip.

We have faculties, as humans, that aren't strictly legible in the way a license or legal code is. Laws are not a substitute for custom or courtesy. We do need both. No one said they stole. They said they were discourteous.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The conversation goes on as long as we like. Part of OSS is about trust and reputation. AWS could have really helped the maintainer with a single sentence and they didn't. It's like not saying thanks to the barista when you get your coffee. Not the end of the world, but it's still a touch rude.

> AWS could have really helped the maintainer with a single sentence and they didn't. It's not befitting a large enterprise like AWS to tell their prospective customers that they are just wrapping their infra around free software in their marketing copy. If that single sentence even slightly impresses upon .1% of their potential customers that they ought to spin it up on their own infrastructure, obviating their need…

That’s not as clear cut as your post may make it seem. Some users (me, for example) are more inclined to use a hosted service of some open source software than of some proprietary piece. Because that gives me a migration option if the providers service no longer fits my needs. For example, I’m paying four digits a month for some hosted Postgres database.

Re: AWS forked my project and launched it as its own service

#90
post #42

There are some replies in this thread that misunderstood the content of Tim Nolet's twitter post. (Probably because the short headline has pitchfork raising overtones.) - He's not complaining that Amazon forked his code with Apache license. He admits he also uses other open source with permissive licenses - He just thought it would be nice/courteous/polite/etc if Amazon acknowledge/recognized/credited/mentioned/thank…

The original 4-clause BSD had an advertising clause that is basically what you're asking for. It was considered impractical.
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