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The issue here is that you're a well-poisoner, putting out code that can't be used, as a joke, while also making a popular blog post and making the software eas

The issue here is that you're a well-poisoner, putting out code that can't be used, as a joke, while also making a popular blog post and making the software easy to use as a library. Now that it's being used, it's also hard for folks to remove your library and implement something similar without it being considered a derivative. Sure, it's funny, but it's a joke at the expense of everyone else. This is like going to a party and walking up to every person and making a joke at their expense. Were the jokes funny? Maybe. Does everything think you're an asshole? Almost certainly.

moreira 5y ago
If anything, it’s raising awareness of the fact that just because it’s on GitHub doesn’t mean it’s FOSS, and that developers need to pay attention to licensing before snatching someone’s work up for their own personal & commercial benefit. In this case the license was silly, but if this library had been GPL, it’d still have been a massive violation by most of those big companies, and that’s something we need to pay more attention to.
thatguy0900 5y ago
One important difference is he didn't walk up to anybody, they walked up to him. He owes nothing to anybody, it's not like he ran a media campaign.
- ryan_lane 5y ago
  He wrote a blog post that was quite popular at the time. He's in this thread explicitly saying he did it for the lulz. The repo doesn't clearly say not to use it, only the license does. People shouldn't use software without checking the license, but if you're making a joke, for a pattern that's actually something used in the industry, because you believe that pattern is bad, yeah, you should label it a joke.
jperry 5y ago
He's not a well-poisoner, someone just decided to chug from a bottle clearly marked "do not drink". If someone spends the time to integrate mystery code without taking the time to check the license allows it then frankly they dug that hole themselves.

moreira 5y ago

If anything, it’s raising awareness of the fact that just because it’s on GitHub doesn’t mean it’s FOSS, and that developers need to pay attention to licensing before snatching someone’s work up for their own personal & commercial benefit. In this case the license was silly, but if this library had been GPL, it’d still have been a massive violation by most of those big companies, and that’s something we need to pay more attention to.

thatguy0900 5y ago

One important difference is he didn't walk up to anybody, they walked up to him. He owes nothing to anybody, it's not like he ran a media campaign.

ryan_lane 5y ago
He wrote a blog post that was quite popular at the time. He's in this thread explicitly saying he did it for the lulz. The repo doesn't clearly say not to use it, only the license does. People shouldn't use software without checking the license, but if you're making a joke, for a pattern that's actually something used in the industry, because you believe that pattern is bad, yeah, you should label it a joke.

jperry 5y ago

He's not a well-poisoner, someone just decided to chug from a bottle clearly marked "do not drink". If someone spends the time to integrate mystery code without taking the time to check the license allows it then frankly they dug that hole themselves.