4 ms·

If you don't like the terms of the license for software you released maybe you should have chosen a different one.

nicoburns 6y ago
There's surely a space between "perfectly acceptable" and "illegal"? I don't like this idea that you have no right to complain about something if you haven't specifically banned it in a legally enforceable license.
- frabert 6y ago
  For big companies, there's no distinction between "morally acceptable" and "legal". Stick to a license where what's immoral to you is made illegal.
  - lki876 6y ago
    For people there is and its always people who make decisions. Companies are just a legal entity.
    - zelphirkalt 6y ago
      But then it depends on what kind of people with what kind of mindset make such decisions, doesn't it? (Hint: It's not the altruistic "share with everyone" mindset they have.)
  - nicoburns 6y ago
    I don't think that's entirely true. Large companies respond to public pressure over things all the time. Some of the better run ones also take the initiative to do things ethically off the bat. If a large company is treating "legal" as "morally acceptable" then we should be calling them out on this, not accepting as part of being a large company. We should certainly also update legislation to force them to do things ethically, but it's not always possible to cover every possible case and thus our society depends on at least some level of corporate ethics.
    - boomlinde 6y ago
      > I don't think that's entirely true. Large companies respond to public pressure over things all the time. That type of response to pressure isn't necessarily of a moral nature. If your customers are boycotting you for not including skub in your product, your choice to include skub in the future could simply be an effort to maintain your customer base, regardless of what moral values skub (non-)inclusion represents.
  - kllrnohj 6y ago
    If that were true then big companies wouldn't have PR departments. But they do, because public image does actually matter to them. Brand recognition & emotional response to those brands is a huge part of being a big company.
- ivanbakel 6y ago
  In this case, the author can set out what they think is acceptable in their license terms. Attribution costs nothing to the user - so if you want it, stick it in your license. People should be able to comfortably use software within the bounds of the license without worrying about the author coming along and then shaming them for not complying with an additional set of implicit constraints. Yes, it would have been nice for Amazon to acknowledge the original author. But given that they are not obligated to, it's unfair to act as if they are at fault for not doing so.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    A credit-to-author clause has been tried before by the tech community, and IMO it's up to the community and not an individual author to develop a license which fits. The reason is because any modification to a well-known agreement makes your license very expensive to understand, even if it's a trivial modification. Open source licenses only work because the community adopts them as a standard.
    - another-dave 6y ago
      I'd agree with this — with things like Creative Commons it's very clear if someone is asking for attribution or not, if it allows non commercial etc. In an enterprise company, it's _much_ easier to use something with an established licence. Having "MIT with attribution" might be waved through by a standing policy. Having "my custom MIT fork" needs Legal involved & may not be a hill to die on so just get ditched instead.
  - mywacaday 6y ago
    I think it comes back to politeness, somewhere in amazon there is product manager that saw or was shown Tim's repo and saw an opportunity(nothing wrong with that). It would have been a nice thing to do to give him a shoutout just like it was a nice thing to do of Tim's to release his code under a permissive license. There must be a mountain of code forked by large companies that if given some sort of recognition would be of benefit to the original author even if its only internet points.
- barkingcat 6y ago
  That's the way corporations have acted forever. If attribution is needed, put it in the license.
  - acomjean 6y ago
    They’ll do it too. If I look through the menus of my oldish (not smart) Panasonic flatscreen tv, there is a menu option that displays all the licenses of the open source software used.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Oh you have the right to complain, just no legal recourse or entitlement to anything.
- boomlinde 6y ago
  > There's surely a space between "perfectly acceptable" and "illegal"? If there is, it's a space that you can minimize using licensing terms, and as a user I will assume that the licensing terms are chosen by the authors in a fashion that best represents their interests. Especially since so many template licenses exist that address this exact problem. > I don't like this idea that you have no right to complain about something if you haven't specifically banned it in a legally enforceable license. I think it's unfair to imply that the post you respond to represents that idea, if that's what you're doing. Although worded frankly, it's a constructive suggestion for what proprietors can do to prevent this. It's not a new problem.
- clinta 6y ago
  I would prefer to see these things enforced by culture and norms rather than laws and licenses. I don't want to have to parse legalese as part of my role as an engineer. I don't want companies to have to hire more lawyers to verify they can use software I wrote. I want them to be able to just use it, then contribute back after they've experienced using it. I don't want a restrictive license may prevent them from ever even trying my software in the first place. I want culture and norms that encourage the company to contribute to the project, not laws.
tnolet 6y ago
OP here. You are 100% right. But it's more about the spirit than the letter here. My company heavily depends on OS from some great projects: we make money based on other people's hard work too. Just a short "shout out" would have been nice. We do that with many open source projects, or we sponsor them. And we are a tiny tiny company.
- senko 6y ago
  I agree with you, but Amazon hasn't reached $1.6T market cap by being "nice". (edit: corrected amount, thx jimhi).
  - warrenq 6y ago
    You missed a T there.
  - jimhi 6y ago
    1.6 TRILLION
    - cute_boi 6y ago
      in USD too.
- searchableguy 6y ago
  Next time, slap AGPL. Maybe offer an alternative license to companies for GitHub sponsorship alongside. I really hate this happens to people. :(
tinus_hn 6y ago
Common courtesy is made of unwritten rules and it does serve a purpose.
- pornel 6y ago
  For person-to-person interactions or small communities. Unwritten rules don't work for corporations. They're driven by what's profitable and (not even always) what's legal.
tuna-piano 6y ago
If Jeff Bezos has a $50 meal at a restaurant and tips $0, would you blame the restaurant for not having a mandatory tipping policy? Or would you blame Jeff Bezos for cheaping out and not following the community norm?
LockAndLol 6y ago
Would a restrictive open-source license even have stopped them? Would any American court fine an American mega-company over something like this? How does that even work, anyway? If the developer were outside of America, would it still have to be taken to the country where the company resides? There's no international court I know of that would handle these kind of things.

There's surely a space between "perfectly acceptable" and "illegal"? I don't like this idea that you have no right to complain about something if you haven't specifically banned it in a legally enforceable license.

frabert 6y ago
For big companies, there's no distinction between "morally acceptable" and "legal". Stick to a license where what's immoral to you is made illegal.
- lki876 6y ago
  For people there is and its always people who make decisions. Companies are just a legal entity.
  - zelphirkalt 6y ago
    But then it depends on what kind of people with what kind of mindset make such decisions, doesn't it? (Hint: It's not the altruistic "share with everyone" mindset they have.)
- nicoburns 6y ago
  I don't think that's entirely true. Large companies respond to public pressure over things all the time. Some of the better run ones also take the initiative to do things ethically off the bat. If a large company is treating "legal" as "morally acceptable" then we should be calling them out on this, not accepting as part of being a large company. We should certainly also update legislation to force them to do things ethically, but it's not always possible to cover every possible case and thus our society depends on at least some level of corporate ethics.
  - boomlinde 6y ago
    > I don't think that's entirely true. Large companies respond to public pressure over things all the time. That type of response to pressure isn't necessarily of a moral nature. If your customers are boycotting you for not including skub in your product, your choice to include skub in the future could simply be an effort to maintain your customer base, regardless of what moral values skub (non-)inclusion represents.
- kllrnohj 6y ago
  If that were true then big companies wouldn't have PR departments. But they do, because public image does actually matter to them. Brand recognition & emotional response to those brands is a huge part of being a big company.
ivanbakel 6y ago
In this case, the author can set out what they think is acceptable in their license terms. Attribution costs nothing to the user - so if you want it, stick it in your license. People should be able to comfortably use software within the bounds of the license without worrying about the author coming along and then shaming them for not complying with an additional set of implicit constraints. Yes, it would have been nice for Amazon to acknowledge the original author. But given that they are not obligated to, it's unfair to act as if they are at fault for not doing so.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  A credit-to-author clause has been tried before by the tech community, and IMO it's up to the community and not an individual author to develop a license which fits. The reason is because any modification to a well-known agreement makes your license very expensive to understand, even if it's a trivial modification. Open source licenses only work because the community adopts them as a standard.
  - another-dave 6y ago
    I'd agree with this — with things like Creative Commons it's very clear if someone is asking for attribution or not, if it allows non commercial etc. In an enterprise company, it's _much_ easier to use something with an established licence. Having "MIT with attribution" might be waved through by a standing policy. Having "my custom MIT fork" needs Legal involved & may not be a hill to die on so just get ditched instead.
- mywacaday 6y ago
  I think it comes back to politeness, somewhere in amazon there is product manager that saw or was shown Tim's repo and saw an opportunity(nothing wrong with that). It would have been a nice thing to do to give him a shoutout just like it was a nice thing to do of Tim's to release his code under a permissive license. There must be a mountain of code forked by large companies that if given some sort of recognition would be of benefit to the original author even if its only internet points.
barkingcat 6y ago
That's the way corporations have acted forever. If attribution is needed, put it in the license.
- acomjean 6y ago
  They’ll do it too. If I look through the menus of my oldish (not smart) Panasonic flatscreen tv, there is a menu option that displays all the licenses of the open source software used.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Oh you have the right to complain, just no legal recourse or entitlement to anything.
boomlinde 6y ago
> There's surely a space between "perfectly acceptable" and "illegal"? If there is, it's a space that you can minimize using licensing terms, and as a user I will assume that the licensing terms are chosen by the authors in a fashion that best represents their interests. Especially since so many template licenses exist that address this exact problem. > I don't like this idea that you have no right to complain about something if you haven't specifically banned it in a legally enforceable license. I think it's unfair to imply that the post you respond to represents that idea, if that's what you're doing. Although worded frankly, it's a constructive suggestion for what proprietors can do to prevent this. It's not a new problem.
clinta 6y ago
I would prefer to see these things enforced by culture and norms rather than laws and licenses. I don't want to have to parse legalese as part of my role as an engineer. I don't want companies to have to hire more lawyers to verify they can use software I wrote. I want them to be able to just use it, then contribute back after they've experienced using it. I don't want a restrictive license may prevent them from ever even trying my software in the first place. I want culture and norms that encourage the company to contribute to the project, not laws.

tnolet 6y ago

OP here. You are 100% right. But it's more about the spirit than the letter here. My company heavily depends on OS from some great projects: we make money based on other people's hard work too. Just a short "shout out" would have been nice. We do that with many open source projects, or we sponsor them. And we are a tiny tiny company.

senko 6y ago
I agree with you, but Amazon hasn't reached $1.6T market cap by being "nice". (edit: corrected amount, thx jimhi).
- warrenq 6y ago
  You missed a T there.
- jimhi 6y ago
  1.6 TRILLION
  - cute_boi 6y ago
    in USD too.
searchableguy 6y ago
Next time, slap AGPL. Maybe offer an alternative license to companies for GitHub sponsorship alongside. I really hate this happens to people. :(

tinus_hn 6y ago

Common courtesy is made of unwritten rules and it does serve a purpose.

pornel 6y ago
For person-to-person interactions or small communities. Unwritten rules don't work for corporations. They're driven by what's profitable and (not even always) what's legal.

tuna-piano 6y ago

If Jeff Bezos has a $50 meal at a restaurant and tips $0, would you blame the restaurant for not having a mandatory tipping policy? Or would you blame Jeff Bezos for cheaping out and not following the community norm?

LockAndLol 6y ago

Would a restrictive open-source license even have stopped them? Would any American court fine an American mega-company over something like this? How does that even work, anyway? If the developer were outside of America, would it still have to be taken to the country where the company resides? There's no international court I know of that would handle these kind of things.