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Planning to rip out code after accepting it is silly. Yes, I suppose people could do that if they don't plan to make a proprietary fork but change their mind la

• DannyBee 11y ago
  "Planning to rip out code after accepting it is silly." They didn't plan on it. Plans changed. "clearly, the issue is whether the contributions amount to a substantial enough part of the software that the ripping out isn't feasible." Having legally supervised tons of these processes for open source projects (most trying to relicense things after discovering their licenses were hurting their communities): It's always feasible. Actual code is often not that important. Knowing what code to write is often important. (I know there are beautiful unique snowflakes who think otherwise ;p) "Also, if you build up a community and then violate their trust, you lose the community. It's not a great strategy. " Sure, but you assume "random people kibitzing on hacker news" represents their community. For all you know, the actually community is entirely in favor! Again, IME, having helped projects through these processes, there is often a huge difference in opinion between the people kibitzing on the sidelines and those who actually contributed meaningfully. My experience is that people who contribute meaningfully are often more sympathetic and understanding of various situations. People who are kibitzing from the sidelines are often more ideological.