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He mentioned that you can look and see on GitHub that Wix explicitly forked Wordpress repositories. The gist I got was this - Wordpress was working on this in

by tomdell 10y ago

He mentioned that you can look and see on GitHub that Wix explicitly forked Wordpress repositories. The gist I got was this - Wordpress was working on this in open source. Wix took their work, built on it, and didn't make their contributions open source, taking advantage of the repository and giving nothing back.

otoburb 10y ago
>>Wix took their work, built on it, and didn't make their contributions open source, taking advantage of the repository and giving nothing back. Which is fine if the code was BSD licensed, but the article states that Wordpress uses GPL, hence Wix may be violating the license regardless of the breach in attribution etiquette.
- charlesdm 10y ago
  I don't even understand what the point in doing this would be, given they're a publicly traded company. Seems like a very careless decision. If they liked the app, they should've just copied the concept and feel of the app but rewritten the actual code. That way the GPL license would not apply. How much would that cost? A few hundred thousand?
  - bdcravens 10y ago
    You're assuming this is a decision made by executives, as opposed to lazy developers.
    - marincounty 10y ago
      But isn't that why executives make the real money? They are suspose to make sure the developers aren't just copying/pasting code? Or, at least mention it a few times in one of their thousand meetings? (I'm just guessing. It seems like one of those companies--the company with endless cappuccino, sweet buns meetings.) And will the average customer of Wix even hear about this "lifted" code--no. Will they care--no. Do they know about open source code--no. Did I ever like Wix--no, but that doesn't matter. To budding web developers--there's still a lot of businesses/customers that need websites. Don't let companies like Wix take all the money. (I really don't like companies that use open source code, and then propriatize it.)
- kevlened 10y ago
  Although it seems against the spirit of GPL, the GPL doesn't explicitly protect against code hosted as a service, so the wix website isn't in violation. That's why AGPL exists. IANAL, but their private fork (I couldn't find a public one on Github) is also technically permissible, as it's not a redistribution of the code. Edit: if what's in question are strictly web assets (images, js, etc), then I'm pretty sure, but not certain, this is a violation
  - charlesdm 10y ago
    But the app is? If they release a modified version of a GPL Android app, they would need to supply the source code, no? The Wix app would constitute a derived work.
    - kevlened 10y ago
      That seems fair. The GPL has a loophole for network-provided services, but apps are native.
      - giancarlostoro 10y ago
        Correct, unless WordPress goes AGPL then Wix can keep their hosted code to themselves. However, the Android App which they should of made themselves will need to be open sourced or taken down and open sourced. The GPL if I remember correctly makes it so upon request (thinking of BMW) you must be able to provide access to the source code, even if you sell the product, that means that whoever buys a GPL'd product from you must also receive the code, but if they didn't buy your product there should be no reason for them to have it if I'm not mistaken. The GPL is interesting, and while not my first choice, it's definitely not a terrible choice.
        charlesdm 10y ago
        GPL is absolutely useless for commercial products, imo. Unless you can run it encapsulated on some sort of web service as a standalone executable. If the goal is to have more open source code, and more code sharing across systems and services then more code should actually be BSD licensed.
labria 10y ago
FYI: Wix open-sourced a ton of react-native stuff built internally to write the app in question: https://github.com/wix?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=react-native https://github.com/wix?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=react-native

by tomdell 10y ago

otoburb 10y ago

>>Wix took their work, built on it, and didn't make their contributions open source, taking advantage of the repository and giving nothing back. Which is fine if the code was BSD licensed, but the article states that Wordpress uses GPL, hence Wix may be violating the license regardless of the breach in attribution etiquette.

charlesdm 10y ago
I don't even understand what the point in doing this would be, given they're a publicly traded company. Seems like a very careless decision. If they liked the app, they should've just copied the concept and feel of the app but rewritten the actual code. That way the GPL license would not apply. How much would that cost? A few hundred thousand?
- bdcravens 10y ago
  You're assuming this is a decision made by executives, as opposed to lazy developers.
  - marincounty 10y ago
    But isn't that why executives make the real money? They are suspose to make sure the developers aren't just copying/pasting code? Or, at least mention it a few times in one of their thousand meetings? (I'm just guessing. It seems like one of those companies--the company with endless cappuccino, sweet buns meetings.) And will the average customer of Wix even hear about this "lifted" code--no. Will they care--no. Do they know about open source code--no. Did I ever like Wix--no, but that doesn't matter. To budding web developers--there's still a lot of businesses/customers that need websites. Don't let companies like Wix take all the money. (I really don't like companies that use open source code, and then propriatize it.)
kevlened 10y ago
Although it seems against the spirit of GPL, the GPL doesn't explicitly protect against code hosted as a service, so the wix website isn't in violation. That's why AGPL exists. IANAL, but their private fork (I couldn't find a public one on Github) is also technically permissible, as it's not a redistribution of the code. Edit: if what's in question are strictly web assets (images, js, etc), then I'm pretty sure, but not certain, this is a violation
- charlesdm 10y ago
  But the app is? If they release a modified version of a GPL Android app, they would need to supply the source code, no? The Wix app would constitute a derived work.
  - kevlened 10y ago
    That seems fair. The GPL has a loophole for network-provided services, but apps are native.
    - giancarlostoro 10y ago
      Correct, unless WordPress goes AGPL then Wix can keep their hosted code to themselves. However, the Android App which they should of made themselves will need to be open sourced or taken down and open sourced. The GPL if I remember correctly makes it so upon request (thinking of BMW) you must be able to provide access to the source code, even if you sell the product, that means that whoever buys a GPL'd product from you must also receive the code, but if they didn't buy your product there should be no reason for them to have it if I'm not mistaken. The GPL is interesting, and while not my first choice, it's definitely not a terrible choice.
      - charlesdm 10y ago
        GPL is absolutely useless for commercial products, imo. Unless you can run it encapsulated on some sort of web service as a standalone executable. If the goal is to have more open source code, and more code sharing across systems and services then more code should actually be BSD licensed.

labria 10y ago

FYI: Wix open-sourced a ton of react-native stuff built internally to write the app in question: https://github.com/wix?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=react-native https://github.com/wix?utf8=%E2%9C%93&query=react-native