3 ms·

Some people find this too rough, but the reality is: do not license something as MIT or any free license if you are not happy with commercial users benefiting f

Some people find this too rough, but the reality is: do not license something as MIT or any free license if you are not happy with commercial users benefiting from your work. Simple as that. None of them are under any obligation to pay, maintain, promote, or not clone your project.

skeeter2020 5y ago
Also let's keep in mind that these projects would never have achieved their level of popularity if they were not licensed liberally. The value he's provided was based on free; you can't then compare it to the alternative after the fact.
- bogwog 5y ago
  This guy wants to have his cake and eat it too. I saw a project recently where the author released it to the public domain, but in the top he said something like "I know it's public domain, but please don't remove my name." Sometimes people choose a liberal license like CC0 or MIT because they don't want to bother researching the boring details of licensing and/or don't care. But clearly that guy who wants his name on it, and the dev in the OP do care about the licensing details. Releasing colors/faker under a liberal license was a mistake, and pushing out this malicious update was another (much worse) mistake. What he should have done was updated his libraries to print out a warning like "This software has reached end-of-life and will no longer be maintained. It is being superseded by Colors PRO. Visit ... for more information.", and then started selling licenses/support contracts. But now, not only is he not going to get paid for colors/faker, he probably won't ever get hired by any of the companies affected by this, he might get sued, and he might even go to prison if this gets misconstrued as hacking. EDIT: Ok, after some more research, it looks like this guy is going through some serious shit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868071 Everything I wrote up there was based on the assumption that he wasn't trying to build a bomb in his apartment...my bad.
Miner49er 5y ago
This goes both ways. Don't blindly use MIT licensed code if you aren't okay with the risk of something breaking or something malicious being inserted.
- dariusj18 5y ago
  malicious is it's own beast that should always be guarded against, but being MIT doesn't give someone the right to be malicious.
  - iandanforth 5y ago
    "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE." Unfit software that causes damage is covered, intent or no.
    - viro 5y ago
      No a license clause can't shield you from an intently malicious act. He's probably getting charged under the CFAA.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Unfit software that causes damage is covered, intent or no. Well, no, an assertion of nonliability isn’t a magical incantation; local law in whatever jurisdiction is applicable may limit the effect of such an assertion; in places with meaningful consumer protection laws there are limits on the ability to disclaim warranties, and even without decent consume protection law it's often impossible to disclaim liability for malicious torts.
      - CRConrad 5y ago
        > Well, no, an assertion of nonliability isn’t a magical incantation; local law in whatever jurisdiction is applicable may limit the effect of such an assertion Did he install this "malware" on people's computers? > with meaningful consumer protection laws there are limits on the ability to disclaim warranties "Consumer"... as in, "someone who bought something"? Oh well, I guess he'll have to pay them all back everything they paid for it. How much, exactly, was that again?

skeeter2020 5y ago

Also let's keep in mind that these projects would never have achieved their level of popularity if they were not licensed liberally. The value he's provided was based on free; you can't then compare it to the alternative after the fact.

bogwog 5y ago
This guy wants to have his cake and eat it too. I saw a project recently where the author released it to the public domain, but in the top he said something like "I know it's public domain, but please don't remove my name." Sometimes people choose a liberal license like CC0 or MIT because they don't want to bother researching the boring details of licensing and/or don't care. But clearly that guy who wants his name on it, and the dev in the OP do care about the licensing details. Releasing colors/faker under a liberal license was a mistake, and pushing out this malicious update was another (much worse) mistake. What he should have done was updated his libraries to print out a warning like "This software has reached end-of-life and will no longer be maintained. It is being superseded by Colors PRO. Visit ... for more information.", and then started selling licenses/support contracts. But now, not only is he not going to get paid for colors/faker, he probably won't ever get hired by any of the companies affected by this, he might get sued, and he might even go to prison if this gets misconstrued as hacking. EDIT: Ok, after some more research, it looks like this guy is going through some serious shit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868071 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29868071 Everything I wrote up there was based on the assumption that he wasn't trying to build a bomb in his apartment...my bad.

Miner49er 5y ago

This goes both ways. Don't blindly use MIT licensed code if you aren't okay with the risk of something breaking or something malicious being inserted.

dariusj18 5y ago
malicious is it's own beast that should always be guarded against, but being MIT doesn't give someone the right to be malicious.
- iandanforth 5y ago
  "THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE." Unfit software that causes damage is covered, intent or no.
  - viro 5y ago
    No a license clause can't shield you from an intently malicious act. He's probably getting charged under the CFAA.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    > Unfit software that causes damage is covered, intent or no. Well, no, an assertion of nonliability isn’t a magical incantation; local law in whatever jurisdiction is applicable may limit the effect of such an assertion; in places with meaningful consumer protection laws there are limits on the ability to disclaim warranties, and even without decent consume protection law it's often impossible to disclaim liability for malicious torts.
    - CRConrad 5y ago
      > Well, no, an assertion of nonliability isn’t a magical incantation; local law in whatever jurisdiction is applicable may limit the effect of such an assertion Did he install this "malware" on people's computers? > with meaningful consumer protection laws there are limits on the ability to disclaim warranties "Consumer"... as in, "someone who bought something"? Oh well, I guess he'll have to pay them all back everything they paid for it. How much, exactly, was that again?