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Perhaps most egregious are companies who profiteer from open source, without contributing back. Amazon comes to mind.
by jjohansson 7y ago
Perhaps most egregious are companies who profiteer from open source, without contributing back. Amazon comes to mind.
- soperj 7y agoSo does Apple.
- human20190310 7y agoThere is basically no reason for them to contribute back. Using all available tools while restricting their own efforts for their own use creates a competitive edge. The only time it makes sense to release something to the public is as a complement to one of their paid services.
- partialrecall 7y agoCopyleft licenses were created for a reason. If you want companies to either contribute back or fuck off, use copyleft licenses.
- claudiawerner 7y agoThis is, unfortunately, less and less true, when companies like Amazon will take some GPL'd software and make modifications internally and never distribute it. Copyleft licenses only apply if Amazon is going to distribute the software outside the company (such as by selling the software, or giving away binaries).
- partialrecall 7y agoThen use a stronger copyleft license like the AGPLv3 that companies like Amazon are totally allergic to. Alternatively, use a license that offends the HR department of the corporation, like WTFPL.
- ensignavenger 7y agoAmazon does contribute to open source, though- https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/ https://aws.amazon.com/opensource/ It may be argued that they don't contribute enough, or that they aren't contributing to what you think they should be, but they certainly do contribute.