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Not regretting it, but open sourcing our embedded PHP engine PH7[1] did hurt our sales (I think) when some Chinese company started abusing the software by embed

Not regretting it, but open sourcing our embedded PHP engine PH7[1] did hurt our sales (I think) when some Chinese company started abusing the software by embedding it in their hardware without paying any license fee (The software is dual licensed and require a commercial license for closed source code). I have a indirect proof of that abuse but starting a lawsuit against a Chinese co won't lead to any result? [1]: https://github.com/symisc/ph7 https://github.com/symisc/ph7

cubano 9y ago
Your project is super interesting to me as a recovering C programmer whom now makes a living with PHP...great job with the example as well. Even the links at the bottom of the readme are awesome.
Sholmesy 9y ago
Just wanted to say that project has a great readme.
kerneldeveloper 9y ago
In China, open source licenses don't have any legal effect, so it's hard to safeguard legal rights. In recent years some open source organizations have been founded and they hope their efforts can change the environment of open source in China. However, there is still a long way to go.
- sgroppino 9y ago
  Maybe a solution is to add some lines of code with special keywords to get your project blocked by the great firewall?
  - edko 9y ago
    Do you know of any project that successfully does this?
    - sslayer 9y ago
      Anybody know of any projects out there that attempt to circumvent the great firewall - I'm guessing those are the ones.
  - tajen 9y ago
    Genius. Name a module "Tiananmen" and Chinese won't hear about the project?
  - x0 9y ago
    Don't think that works. Added "falun gong" to my SSH banner, have had around 2 million attempts by a single Chinese IP (IIRC).
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- oliwarner 9y ago
  Could you expand on that? China's laws implement the Berne Convention, making copyright automatic. Open source licenses usually provide conditional exceptions to that automatic and internationally accepted copyright. So if they don't believe in open source licenses, or whatever, "all rights reserved" is logically the default fallback. That obviously doesn't marry with what you said. China is famously awful at upholding IP laws they're party to, but I think that's all this is here. It's still against the law there, but nobody cares if it's not hurting China.
  - JoshMnem 9y ago
    That doesn't seem to make sense. If "all rights reserved" is the default fallback, why are they using other people's code? By default, they should respect the copyright and ignore that the projects have additional terms to allow use only under certain conditions.
    - oliwarner 9y ago
      That's sort of my wider point. It's not that it's because it's under a permissive license, it's because —being super racist here— they just don't care whether it's copyright or not. The type of license is irrelevant.
      - marcoperaza 9y ago
        There's nothing racist about acknowledging cultural differences, or even making claims of superiority of one culture over another. Racism is judging individual people based on their race instead of more substantive criteria, like culture, values, and actions.
        oliwarner 9y ago
        "Acknowledging cultural differences" is a too broad a thing to just okay like that. People tend to go over the top. Americans are fat and arrogant, Mexicans are lazy, the Spanish are dirty, and the Irish are drunks. It's very easy to say that China —the country— has a problem with intellectual property, but tarring all ethnically-Chinese people with that brush affects hires and promotions in our own countries. Respecting IP ownership is as much a learned skill as learning to say exactly what you mean when you're accusing a country's governments, police and courts of actively turning a blind eye to IP abuse.
rurban 9y ago
You wrote unqlite also? And the embedded redis variant vedis? Whow! Huge props. Just one typo in the ph7 readme: powerfull is too german
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
bencollier49 9y ago
Out of interest, would it be possible to pursue anyone who is reselling that hardware in the West?
antaviana 9y ago
There's a malediction that reads: "You have lawsuits and you win them". The idea is that lawsuits are so painful that even if you win them, they're so draining that you wish you never started them. If I were you, I'd focus on your real customers and wouldn't lose much time on the deadbeats. When you realize that there will be always people not wanting to pay (either open source or closed source), you can better focus on your customers in a lot more relaxing way.

cubano 9y ago

Your project is super interesting to me as a recovering C programmer whom now makes a living with PHP...great job with the example as well. Even the links at the bottom of the readme are awesome.

Sholmesy 9y ago

Just wanted to say that project has a great readme.

kerneldeveloper 9y ago

In China, open source licenses don't have any legal effect, so it's hard to safeguard legal rights. In recent years some open source organizations have been founded and they hope their efforts can change the environment of open source in China. However, there is still a long way to go.

sgroppino 9y ago
Maybe a solution is to add some lines of code with special keywords to get your project blocked by the great firewall?
- edko 9y ago
  Do you know of any project that successfully does this?
  - sslayer 9y ago
    Anybody know of any projects out there that attempt to circumvent the great firewall - I'm guessing those are the ones.
- tajen 9y ago
  Genius. Name a module "Tiananmen" and Chinese won't hear about the project?
- x0 9y ago
  Don't think that works. Added "falun gong" to my SSH banner, have had around 2 million attempts by a single Chinese IP (IIRC).
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
oliwarner 9y ago
Could you expand on that? China's laws implement the Berne Convention, making copyright automatic. Open source licenses usually provide conditional exceptions to that automatic and internationally accepted copyright. So if they don't believe in open source licenses, or whatever, "all rights reserved" is logically the default fallback. That obviously doesn't marry with what you said. China is famously awful at upholding IP laws they're party to, but I think that's all this is here. It's still against the law there, but nobody cares if it's not hurting China.
- JoshMnem 9y ago
  That doesn't seem to make sense. If "all rights reserved" is the default fallback, why are they using other people's code? By default, they should respect the copyright and ignore that the projects have additional terms to allow use only under certain conditions.
  - oliwarner 9y ago
    That's sort of my wider point. It's not that it's because it's under a permissive license, it's because —being super racist here— they just don't care whether it's copyright or not. The type of license is irrelevant.
    - marcoperaza 9y ago
      There's nothing racist about acknowledging cultural differences, or even making claims of superiority of one culture over another. Racism is judging individual people based on their race instead of more substantive criteria, like culture, values, and actions.
      - oliwarner 9y ago
        "Acknowledging cultural differences" is a too broad a thing to just okay like that. People tend to go over the top. Americans are fat and arrogant, Mexicans are lazy, the Spanish are dirty, and the Irish are drunks. It's very easy to say that China —the country— has a problem with intellectual property, but tarring all ethnically-Chinese people with that brush affects hires and promotions in our own countries. Respecting IP ownership is as much a learned skill as learning to say exactly what you mean when you're accusing a country's governments, police and courts of actively turning a blind eye to IP abuse.

rurban 9y ago

You wrote unqlite also? And the embedded redis variant vedis? Whow! Huge props. Just one typo in the ph7 readme: powerfull is too german

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

bencollier49 9y ago

Out of interest, would it be possible to pursue anyone who is reselling that hardware in the West?

antaviana 9y ago

There's a malediction that reads: "You have lawsuits and you win them". The idea is that lawsuits are so painful that even if you win them, they're so draining that you wish you never started them. If I were you, I'd focus on your real customers and wouldn't lose much time on the deadbeats. When you realize that there will be always people not wanting to pay (either open source or closed source), you can better focus on your customers in a lot more relaxing way.