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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]

#81

Post by tombert »

TheChaplain wrote: post #78
tombert wrote: post #60

Things like this are why I have become disillusioned with Open Source, and why latest projects have been closed source. The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. If a corporation is selling an optimized binary, then it can be almost impossible to prove that there was any violation of the GPL without viewing the source.

> The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. Really? If you find a piece of proprietary software does basically the same thing as yours, and the binaries contains the same strings/artwork, then it's reasonable to make a legal case of it. You can even contact FSF and they'll take it further.

If you can directly prove a violation dead to rights (or have enough cause for a discovery request) and you have money for legal defense, sure.

A lot of open source stuff is libraries and utilities though that is pretty entrenched in the code. It is hard to even find out about a violation, let alone prove anything.

Imagine I came up with a new algorithm to do Fourier Transforms 10% faster than FFTW (or whatever the current market leader is) and make a library and I release it as GPL. A company could fairly easily just import it to whatever project they’re doing, and it would be extremely difficult for me to prove anything, especially if I don’t have any obvious things like strings in there.

That’s not even taking into account that it would be relatively easy for a corporation to just pay a junior engineer to do a direct “port” of the library to another language and pretending it’s their own independent work.

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

#82

Post by tombert »

sohzm wrote: post #79
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a million reasons to want to write open source. A lack of attribution in particular is a killer for motivation.

i love open source because it feels like a kind of donation i can't make financially, so in a way, i'm trying to make up for that but yeah someone claiming it all falsely isnt good for the motivation

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.

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

#83

Post by eddythompson80 »

stitched2gethr wrote: post #46
roncesvalles wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A GPL violation is a GPL violation.

I made an OSS tool to help you cheat on your taxes, screw your business partner, or ensure your ex wife cannot see the children. Someone stole the source and is backed by a major VC firm. Is the thought different at all or exactly the same? Just raising the question.

It's exactly the same of course? Why would it be different?

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

#84

Post by _345 »

jwilber wrote: post #31

Over the last decade or two, the builder/hacker ethos has seemed to shift towards this grifter, money-over-everything attitude. I’m sure there’s a lot at play (crypto culture, VC self-selection, the attraction of ‘easy’ high salaries), but I’m sure it’ll get markedly worse with ai tooling and the any-publicity-is-good fomo marketing that’s taken over the startup scene. My take is both OP’s tool and the blatant plagia…

where are we headed...

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

#85

Post by qwertyuiop12 »

tombert wrote: post #60

Things like this are why I have become disillusioned with Open Source, and why latest projects have been closed source. The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. If a corporation is selling an optimized binary, then it can be almost impossible to prove that there was any violation of the GPL without viewing the source.

In general, I try to add a fingerprint into the output.

For example, in a project which generates images I usually set a specific set of pixels.

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

#86

Post by tombert »

qwertyuiop12 wrote: post #85
tombert wrote: post #60

Things like this are why I have become disillusioned with Open Source, and why latest projects have been closed source. The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. If a corporation is selling an optimized binary, then it can be almost impossible to prove that there was any violation of the GPL without viewing the source.

In general, I try to add a fingerprint into the output. For example, in a project which generates images I usually set a specific set of pixels.

Sure, but if they have access to your code then a company could pay a junior engineer to look for any kinds of explicit fingerprints and remove it.

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

#87

Post by rincebrain »

mindcrime wrote: post #25
an0malous wrote: post #22

There’s a reason they ask the question about describing a time you “hacked a system to your advantage” in the YC application. They have always selected for founders who are willing to take advantage of legal and ethical gray areas. Reddit created fake users and farmed content from Digg, Airbnb scraped listings from Craigslist.

There is no "grey area" here, and this isn't "hacking".

There's an argument to be made that, even if it's an open and shut violation, if enforcement is nontrivial and a vanishingly low risk, it still pattern matches as "grey area" in terms of risk.

Not at all in favor of the person stealing someone else's code and slapping a new name on it in violation of the license, just that I think I see why people might list that as matching the same intent as a question like that.

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

#88

Post by eddythompson80 »

sohzm wrote: post #44
nativeit wrote: post #30

[flagged]

its not the best name tbh, i just made it as a meme but people take the name seriously and that hurts the case ive posted the evidence in twitter thread link

> its not the best name tbh

lol, I'll bet you $10 that the name is exactly why they got themselves into this mess. Had the name been something like "meeting-agent" or some corporate friendly name like that, they probably wouldn't have tried to hide it so much.

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

#89

Post by eddythompson80 »

rustystump wrote: post #65
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it was 'just' a licensing slip up sure, but there's still a lot of integrity issues here despite that. The presentation of "we created an open source library to do X in just days" comes across as a lie right? I feel like ycombinator leads may want to look more deeply into this one. If they are presenting it as something they've achieved that's an integrity issue right?

This is the crux of it all to me. Anyone in the industry knows mistakes happen all the time but the braggadocios nature rubs me the wrong way and spits in the face to those of YC who do indeed have integrity.

It's baffling why someone would do this tbh. It's not like the base project is some spectacular piece of engineering that would be very costly to replicate.

I'm guessing they just looked at it as a jumping point. It probably went something like:

- We know how to polish an electron app

- here is a barebone electron app with an interesting idea

- Can we build a polished UI around this, and give a demo?

The baffling part is, had they just disclosed that, no one would have given a shit. Plenty of demos begin like that: "here is a cool idea we found, here is that idea on crack". is a very common demo pattern. But of course you can't give a shout out to 'cheating-daddy' at YC demo.

It's like a fine student at a fine college, in a class they are doing fine in, then they decide to copy their friend's cover letter because "eh", then they get caught and now what? wtf would you do this?

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

#90

Post by ipsum2 »

This is the second time in less than a year something similar has happened.

Previously, a different YC company (Pear AI) copied Continue, changed the licenses, and "launched".

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41707495

I wonder if Pear AI is dead or pivoted, their open source repos have not been updated since May.

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