4 ms·

I honestly think there's room for more than gratitude with, as you said, a trillion dollar company. I know its hard to find a balance when we want free and open

by cacois 6y ago

I honestly think there's room for more than gratitude with, as you said, a trillion dollar company. I know its hard to find a balance when we want free and open tools, developed in a spirit of sharing and enabling innovation. But something feels slimy about an enormous company deriving a huge amount of revenue from a FOSS project, when they could easily compensate developer(s) with barely an impact to their bottom line. I know its not required by licensing - but "legal" doesn't always mean "right".

sslayer 6y ago
I think the legal aspect of the licensing determines what is "right", otherwise the definition of "right" can be interpreted different ways. Don't be fooled, both parties entered into a contract. One when they published the software, and one when they used the software. Any expectations outside of that are left undocumented.
- cacois 6y ago
  Even agreed-upon contracts can be predatory. Maybe there should be a license that says "free and clear for everyone but trillion-dollar companies, because they should really compensate developers for value". I personally think it would be a great look for Amazon if they made it a policy to compensate developers from whom they derive significant economic value. Because they can, and because the developers deserve it.
  - barumi 6y ago
    If developers expected to get compensated for the work they explicitly and voluntarily released for anyone and everyone in the world for absolutely free, wouldn't they have released it under different terms? I mean, it sounds awfully dishonest to do a 180 on the expectations once a user with a deep enough wallet happens to be singled out.
    - sillysaurusx 6y ago
      It doesn’t seem dishonest. Companies do it (market segmentation).
      - barumi 6y ago
        No, they really don't. You don't see companies giving away their products under a permissive license to, afterwards, stating that we should not pay attention to the license because they now want a chunk of our paycheck. That would be as dishonest as it gets, and the dishonesty in that doesn't change if we replace a company with a single-person company.
- mosselman 6y ago
  “Right” can always be interpreted in many ways. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is when “right” is just one thing when we need to worry.
- ncmncm 6y ago
  A license is not a contract. Using and distributing Free Software is not entering into a contract. You certainly can have a contract around a license, but that is a whole other topic.
  - bryal 6y ago
    It is in France, and possibly other places as well.
orangechairs 6y ago
Amazon stealing OSS products and repackaging them for profit is a behavior they are replicating over and over. Big and small projects alike are neither protected nor immune (see Mongo, Elastic, Redis,...) To see so much of the developer community respond by placing blame on the developers is heartbreaking and at the root of the tragedy of open source. It's either: your fault for using a permissive license OR shame on you for not using a permissive license. Where is the outrage at the predatory companies cannibalizing open source? We need to remember who the real enemy of open source is. The only company that benefits from open source shaming is Amazon. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-middle-finger/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19364534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19364534 [3] https://thenewstack.io/redis-pulls-back-on-open-source-licensing-citing-stingy-cloud-services/ https://thenewstack.io/redis-pulls-back-on-open-source-licen...
- barumi 6y ago
  > Amazon stealing OSS products and repackaging them (...) Since when does providing managed services started to pass off as "stealing"? Am I stealing FLOSS projects as well if I install them on a production environment? It makes zero sense to try to pull this sort of bait-and-switch scam with FLOSS. If you release a project into the world while explicitly stating that everyone in the whole world is free to use it as they see fit then don't complain that someone was free to use it as they saw fit.
  - branweb 6y ago
    I think you have a point. But there does seem to be a difference between say using FLOSS project X as a dependency in my app vs AWS tweaking it, introducing it as a direct competitor to X, and leveraging their huge marketshare to sell it. Seems like not illegal, not even sure if it's ethically shaky, but there does seem to be a difference right?
    - barumi 6y ago
      > But there does seem to be a difference between say using FLOSS project X as a dependency in my app vs AWS tweaking it, introducing it as a direct competitor to X, and leveraging their huge marketshare to sell it. Is there really a difference at all? You're complaining that a managed service is somehow "a direct competitor". Compete in what? I mean, am I really competing with the project if I get a few instances up and running? By your line of reasoning, they are actually helping the project grow and establish itself as relevant piece of infrastructure. Somehow I don't see this being used as a justification to demand a share of the revenue the other way around. In the end, all I see is people complaining that someone who uses a project that was always freely distributed happens to have deep wallets, and somehow hey feel entitled to some cash just because a third party is rich. Where does this make any sense?
kazinator 6y ago
When you put a certain license on your freely redistributed code, the assumption is that you're doing it it with your eyes open, and agree with all the ramifications. Free software which requires a copyright notice to be retained in the source, but has no restrictions on run-time can be used in exactly that way: someone builds it, modifies it to taste and puts it into operation in such a way that your name does not appear anywhere. You don't necessarily want that. Do you want some AWS customers contacting you about issues with it because they found your name? What is legal coincides with what is right, because the developers had every opportunity to choose a license which exactly reflects what they think is right. It's a reasonable assumption is that they did exactly that.
aabbcc1241 6y ago
The FOSS developer and big company are doing different thing/role. One is doing development, which requires innovation and time; other is providing service, which requires economy of scale and network effect. It might be better if the end user tips like likecoin, which will automatically divide the tips to direct and indirect upstream contributor.

by cacois 6y ago

sslayer 6y ago

I think the legal aspect of the licensing determines what is "right", otherwise the definition of "right" can be interpreted different ways. Don't be fooled, both parties entered into a contract. One when they published the software, and one when they used the software. Any expectations outside of that are left undocumented.

cacois 6y ago
Even agreed-upon contracts can be predatory. Maybe there should be a license that says "free and clear for everyone but trillion-dollar companies, because they should really compensate developers for value". I personally think it would be a great look for Amazon if they made it a policy to compensate developers from whom they derive significant economic value. Because they can, and because the developers deserve it.
- barumi 6y ago
  If developers expected to get compensated for the work they explicitly and voluntarily released for anyone and everyone in the world for absolutely free, wouldn't they have released it under different terms? I mean, it sounds awfully dishonest to do a 180 on the expectations once a user with a deep enough wallet happens to be singled out.
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    It doesn’t seem dishonest. Companies do it (market segmentation).
    - barumi 6y ago
      No, they really don't. You don't see companies giving away their products under a permissive license to, afterwards, stating that we should not pay attention to the license because they now want a chunk of our paycheck. That would be as dishonest as it gets, and the dishonesty in that doesn't change if we replace a company with a single-person company.
mosselman 6y ago
“Right” can always be interpreted in many ways. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is when “right” is just one thing when we need to worry.
ncmncm 6y ago
A license is not a contract. Using and distributing Free Software is not entering into a contract. You certainly can have a contract around a license, but that is a whole other topic.
- bryal 6y ago
  It is in France, and possibly other places as well.

orangechairs 6y ago

Amazon stealing OSS products and repackaging them for profit is a behavior they are replicating over and over. Big and small projects alike are neither protected nor immune (see Mongo, Elastic, Redis,...) To see so much of the developer community respond by placing blame on the developers is heartbreaking and at the root of the tragedy of open source. It's either: your fault for using a permissive license OR shame on you for not using a permissive license. Where is the outrage at the predatory companies cannibalizing open source? We need to remember who the real enemy of open source is. The only company that benefits from open source shaming is Amazon. [1] https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-middle-finger/ https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/09/aws-gives-open-source-the-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19364534 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19364534 [3] https://thenewstack.io/redis-pulls-back-on-open-source-licensing-citing-stingy-cloud-services/ https://thenewstack.io/redis-pulls-back-on-open-source-licen...

barumi 6y ago
> Amazon stealing OSS products and repackaging them (...) Since when does providing managed services started to pass off as "stealing"? Am I stealing FLOSS projects as well if I install them on a production environment? It makes zero sense to try to pull this sort of bait-and-switch scam with FLOSS. If you release a project into the world while explicitly stating that everyone in the whole world is free to use it as they see fit then don't complain that someone was free to use it as they saw fit.
- branweb 6y ago
  I think you have a point. But there does seem to be a difference between say using FLOSS project X as a dependency in my app vs AWS tweaking it, introducing it as a direct competitor to X, and leveraging their huge marketshare to sell it. Seems like not illegal, not even sure if it's ethically shaky, but there does seem to be a difference right?
  - barumi 6y ago
    > But there does seem to be a difference between say using FLOSS project X as a dependency in my app vs AWS tweaking it, introducing it as a direct competitor to X, and leveraging their huge marketshare to sell it. Is there really a difference at all? You're complaining that a managed service is somehow "a direct competitor". Compete in what? I mean, am I really competing with the project if I get a few instances up and running? By your line of reasoning, they are actually helping the project grow and establish itself as relevant piece of infrastructure. Somehow I don't see this being used as a justification to demand a share of the revenue the other way around. In the end, all I see is people complaining that someone who uses a project that was always freely distributed happens to have deep wallets, and somehow hey feel entitled to some cash just because a third party is rich. Where does this make any sense?

kazinator 6y ago

When you put a certain license on your freely redistributed code, the assumption is that you're doing it it with your eyes open, and agree with all the ramifications. Free software which requires a copyright notice to be retained in the source, but has no restrictions on run-time can be used in exactly that way: someone builds it, modifies it to taste and puts it into operation in such a way that your name does not appear anywhere. You don't necessarily want that. Do you want some AWS customers contacting you about issues with it because they found your name? What is legal coincides with what is right, because the developers had every opportunity to choose a license which exactly reflects what they think is right. It's a reasonable assumption is that they did exactly that.

aabbcc1241 6y ago

The FOSS developer and big company are doing different thing/role. One is doing development, which requires innovation and time; other is providing service, which requires economy of scale and network effect. It might be better if the end user tips like likecoin, which will automatically divide the tips to direct and indirect upstream contributor.