5 ms·

A few months ago I made a free open source extension to speedup youtube ads that I shared here & hit the front page. Within a week a guy (who commented on my sh

A few months ago I made a free open source extension to speedup youtube ads that I shared here & hit the front page. Within a week a guy (who commented on my show hn thread) copied it and promoted his version on reddit which went viral and has 300k+ Users [1] But why copy a free open source extension instead of just contributing a pr? Well... a few weeks later he was trying to sell it on multiple sites for 5 figures. Maybe they still own it but I couldn't help but notice that the registered developer for his extension on the chrome store has also changed since it was originally published. [1] https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_post.md https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_pos...

93po 3y ago
that must feel crappy, sorry to hear that happened
gxs 3y ago
And this is how you end up with the IP laws we have today. This sucks man, at least this only cost you potential earnings (that it sounds like you weren’t pursuing) vs any actual money. I wonder if in theory, should you want to, there’d be any legal recourse.
- fireattack 3y ago
  He copied OP's idea, not their code AFAIK.
  - PradeetPatel 3y ago
    Even if they copied OP's code, depending on the FOSS license it might not be illegal. As someone who grew up in India, this practice is actually quite common and not exactly frowned up. When you have multiple products that perform similar functions, whoever can sell them the best will gain market dominance. OP did not pursue the monetization path chosen by his competitor and lost out only on potential income, this might be a good lesson in entrepreneurship and IP management.
EdwardDiego 3y ago
But I thought his was FOSS too (according to him)
- chii 3y ago
  the buyer is buying the users, not the software.
theogravity 3y ago
Sorry to hear. That really sucks. Is there a license that prevents direct resale but keeps it open source?
- TheDong 3y ago
  No such license can exist, if it did it wouldn't be open source. Open Source, as defined by the Free Software Foundation or Open Source Initiative, requires the right to create a modified version of a piece of software and sell it. It doesn't matter if the modification is nothing. A trademark on the name will require a reseller to rename it to avoid trademark infringement. A patent on some part of it is a scummy way to do it, but that violates the spirit of open source.
  - eru 3y ago
    You could have a license that's open source in all respects but this one. However, someone could make a change, redistribute under the same term, and then someone else could undo the change, and redistribute, essentially redistributing the original without modification.
  - wruza 3y ago
    “Open source” is when sources are open, i.e. available to anyone. That’s literally in the name. FSF/OSI traditionally reassign the meaning in their own scope and have a process of approval, probably for a good reason. Also some people will resist and blame you for being “misleading” with your “open source”. But you definitely can have an open source non-free non-modifyable project. There’s no law of physics which could stop you, nor legal laws which prohibit combining words into meaningful sentences. Just make a proprietary app with all legal remarks and open the sources by publishing them somewhere.
    - kadoban 3y ago
      > FSF/OSI traditionally reassign the meaning in their own scope and have a process of approval, probably for a good reason. Also some people will resist and blame you for being “misleading” with your “open source”. But you definitely can have an open source non-free non-modifyable project. They did not "reassign the meaning". They created the term, it did not exist before their usage. They created it to mean the thing you're now saying it doesn't mean.
finnh 3y ago
Curious why you are careful to never mention the handle of the HN user in text, only in images. What is the perceived threat model of stating clearly (in this comment, or in your blog post) the name of the HN user who copied you etc?
- 14 3y ago
  100%. Is someone is going to be shitty they deserve to be called out front and centre. If they just copied the program and shipped it as their own that speaks volume as to being a bad person and I would not want to collaborate with a person like that. If they took the open source program and truly made some great additions to it and improved it then that would be a different matter. Pretty sad to not give credit to the creator of the program. Call this guy out in my opinion as well.
- 0_____0 3y ago
  sometimes the beef ain't worth it, man
- elbear 3y ago
  Maybe he's afraid of getting sued.
- sph 3y ago
  There he is: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=corn-dog https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=corn-dog Let's tar and feather the scoundrel.
  - 0_____0 3y ago
    Brigading users is probably a bad idea. Reading their comment history does yield some interesting rebuttals though, would recommend.
    - rKarpinski 3y ago
      Not probably. brigading is a bad idea. My whole point was "hey thats not cool" that you copied me especially since you run a thousand+ person dev community. His rebuttal about wether or not it was legal, or violating the license etc. sort of misses the substance of the argument. To me it was a moral issue not a legal issue [1]. [1] https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_post.md#what-is-property--pierre-joseph-proudhon https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_pos...
wnevets 3y ago
I believe that is called getting "zuckered".
gremlinunderway 3y ago
Are there FOSS licenses which can mandate some kind of "non-commercial" open source use or ethical-use clauses of some type? Seem to recall this being something that some folks were either trying to make happen after the Palantir / ICE boycots. (cue someone getting upset about "politicizing" licensing or cancel culture or whatever, as if the entire concept of intellectual property isnt political at its core)
- marc_abonce 3y ago
  The pedantic answer you'll probably get here is that there's no such thing because that wouldn't be trve FOSS, but that would be missing the point of the question, so: There's the Business Source License[1] used by MariaDB, which allows for any "non-production" usage and automatically converts to fully open source 4 years after publication. There's also the Commons Clause[2] which is supposed to be appended to any other open source license to add a restriction against the "right to Sell the Software". And there's also Creative Commons NonCommercial license[3], but that one's not specifically meant for software. All of these are interesting licenses, but honestly I haven't fully read them yet and I don't know if they have any issues or ambiguities or loopholes. [1] https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ [2] https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/ [3] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
- samatman 3y ago
  Contrary the sibling comment, the answer is no, and it isn't pedantry at all. The people who established the free software and open source movements care deeply about the standards embodied in the licenses those movements use. It disrespects their work and vision to conflate other licenses with FOSS licenses, and it pollutes the commons. We use words to communicate things, and having a clear definition of what is and isn't open source is important. There are certainly licenses which meet those goals, and in my opinion at least, there's nothing wrong with using them. I'm not opposed to proprietary software, or source-available licenses which come with certain restrictions. But by definition, it isn't open source or free software.
  - 3y ago
3abiton 3y ago
Doesn't certain licenses (like MIT) prevent exactly that?
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  MIT only requires attribution. A fork can still monetize the original work with minimal changes. A trademark could help at least protect the name. Or if they stripped all attribution then a legal case could be made.
chimpanzee 3y ago
Truly sorry for your experience. Hopefully it ends well, but if not you may find use of the philosophy of Jeff Tweedy: …And if the whole world's singing your songs And all of your paintings have been hung Just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on And that's not wrong or right But you can struggle with it all you like You'll only get uptight…” - “What Light” by Wilco
avodonosov 3y ago
> Next time I’ll be more aggressive with promotion. Why not this time? If you are interested to promote your extension, you can do it now. Your extension is still there. Another question is for how long YouTube and Chrome will allow it to work. (They may also feel disappointed).
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  > Why not this time? The drama killed my enthusiasm and at the end of the day it was a silly side project. Have more important things to do if it is not fun. > Another question is for how long YouTube and Chrome will allow it to work. (They may also feel disappointed). It'd probably have to get orders of magnitudes more users for YouTube to do something. But not every streaming site is as laissez faire; Hulu detects it if you set it to the max speed (16x) and Twitch is more obfuscated.
Too 3y ago
To give some nuance, here is the other side of that story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463233 Can’t say I understand all the background but really… the extension is 50 lines of trivial js. Claiming someone stole it is quite bold. And as we all know, ideas are worth nothing, can’t really claim this idea is that novel either. Assuming the other party even took inspiration, the timeline of who did what first is not entirely clear.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  I said he copied, not stole. In terms of timeline... here is him commenting on my the shown HN post I made https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38328305 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38328305 here is his days later https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38398571 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38398571
  - laborcontract 3y ago
    If it's any consolation to you, I have a very oddly specific memory about this. I didn't follow any drama or didn't know that there was drama. But I do remember your original post and then seeing the second post a few days later thinking, “wait, why is this being so highly upvoted when we all front-paged this a few days ago?”
    - rKarpinski 3y ago
      haha thanks. And I documented it all in the blog post I wrote way back when [1] there really isn't any question about timeline or if it was inspired. At the end of the day, it was a silly project I built and I got 20k users! It didn't feel great to be copied and have them get 15x more traction. Whatever the thoughts are around that... the reason I posted today was the relevancy to the parent extension because within weeks they tried to (or did) sell the extension's user base (presumably to bad actors). I had no idea how shady the extension world was before this, and I'm much more conservative about which ones I'll install now. [1] https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_post.md#what-is-property--pierre-joseph-proudhon https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_pos...
Amailman 3y ago
Not to mention, the other app has open webpages and other scummy, unsolicited behaviour. Whereas yours just does what it's supposed to.
- rKarpinski 3y ago
  Yep then it likely changed ownership to exploit the user base, which their recent reviews seem to point to https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-speedup-skip-video-ads/pcjlckhhhmlefmobnnoolakplfppdchi/reviews https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-speedup-skip-vid...

93po 3y ago

that must feel crappy, sorry to hear that happened

gxs 3y ago

And this is how you end up with the IP laws we have today. This sucks man, at least this only cost you potential earnings (that it sounds like you weren’t pursuing) vs any actual money. I wonder if in theory, should you want to, there’d be any legal recourse.

fireattack 3y ago
He copied OP's idea, not their code AFAIK.
- PradeetPatel 3y ago
  Even if they copied OP's code, depending on the FOSS license it might not be illegal. As someone who grew up in India, this practice is actually quite common and not exactly frowned up. When you have multiple products that perform similar functions, whoever can sell them the best will gain market dominance. OP did not pursue the monetization path chosen by his competitor and lost out only on potential income, this might be a good lesson in entrepreneurship and IP management.

EdwardDiego 3y ago

But I thought his was FOSS too (according to him)

chii 3y ago
the buyer is buying the users, not the software.

theogravity 3y ago

Sorry to hear. That really sucks. Is there a license that prevents direct resale but keeps it open source?

TheDong 3y ago
No such license can exist, if it did it wouldn't be open source. Open Source, as defined by the Free Software Foundation or Open Source Initiative, requires the right to create a modified version of a piece of software and sell it. It doesn't matter if the modification is nothing. A trademark on the name will require a reseller to rename it to avoid trademark infringement. A patent on some part of it is a scummy way to do it, but that violates the spirit of open source.
- eru 3y ago
  You could have a license that's open source in all respects but this one. However, someone could make a change, redistribute under the same term, and then someone else could undo the change, and redistribute, essentially redistributing the original without modification.
- wruza 3y ago
  “Open source” is when sources are open, i.e. available to anyone. That’s literally in the name. FSF/OSI traditionally reassign the meaning in their own scope and have a process of approval, probably for a good reason. Also some people will resist and blame you for being “misleading” with your “open source”. But you definitely can have an open source non-free non-modifyable project. There’s no law of physics which could stop you, nor legal laws which prohibit combining words into meaningful sentences. Just make a proprietary app with all legal remarks and open the sources by publishing them somewhere.
  - kadoban 3y ago
    > FSF/OSI traditionally reassign the meaning in their own scope and have a process of approval, probably for a good reason. Also some people will resist and blame you for being “misleading” with your “open source”. But you definitely can have an open source non-free non-modifyable project. They did not "reassign the meaning". They created the term, it did not exist before their usage. They created it to mean the thing you're now saying it doesn't mean.

finnh 3y ago

Curious why you are careful to never mention the handle of the HN user in text, only in images. What is the perceived threat model of stating clearly (in this comment, or in your blog post) the name of the HN user who copied you etc?

14 3y ago
100%. Is someone is going to be shitty they deserve to be called out front and centre. If they just copied the program and shipped it as their own that speaks volume as to being a bad person and I would not want to collaborate with a person like that. If they took the open source program and truly made some great additions to it and improved it then that would be a different matter. Pretty sad to not give credit to the creator of the program. Call this guy out in my opinion as well.
0_____0 3y ago
sometimes the beef ain't worth it, man
elbear 3y ago
Maybe he's afraid of getting sued.
sph 3y ago
There he is: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=corn-dog https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=corn-dog Let's tar and feather the scoundrel.
- 0_____0 3y ago
  Brigading users is probably a bad idea. Reading their comment history does yield some interesting rebuttals though, would recommend.
  - rKarpinski 3y ago
    Not probably. brigading is a bad idea. My whole point was "hey thats not cool" that you copied me especially since you run a thousand+ person dev community. His rebuttal about wether or not it was legal, or violating the license etc. sort of misses the substance of the argument. To me it was a moral issue not a legal issue [1]. [1] https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_post.md#what-is-property--pierre-joseph-proudhon https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_pos...

wnevets 3y ago

I believe that is called getting "zuckered".

gremlinunderway 3y ago

Are there FOSS licenses which can mandate some kind of "non-commercial" open source use or ethical-use clauses of some type? Seem to recall this being something that some folks were either trying to make happen after the Palantir / ICE boycots. (cue someone getting upset about "politicizing" licensing or cancel culture or whatever, as if the entire concept of intellectual property isnt political at its core)

marc_abonce 3y ago
The pedantic answer you'll probably get here is that there's no such thing because that wouldn't be trve FOSS, but that would be missing the point of the question, so: There's the Business Source License[1] used by MariaDB, which allows for any "non-production" usage and automatically converts to fully open source 4 years after publication. There's also the Commons Clause[2] which is supposed to be appended to any other open source license to add a restriction against the "right to Sell the Software". And there's also Creative Commons NonCommercial license[3], but that one's not specifically meant for software. All of these are interesting licenses, but honestly I haven't fully read them yet and I don't know if they have any issues or ambiguities or loopholes. [1] https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ https://mariadb.com/bsl11/ [2] https://commonsclause.com/ https://commonsclause.com/ [3] https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
samatman 3y ago
Contrary the sibling comment, the answer is no, and it isn't pedantry at all. The people who established the free software and open source movements care deeply about the standards embodied in the licenses those movements use. It disrespects their work and vision to conflate other licenses with FOSS licenses, and it pollutes the commons. We use words to communicate things, and having a clear definition of what is and isn't open source is important. There are certainly licenses which meet those goals, and in my opinion at least, there's nothing wrong with using them. I'm not opposed to proprietary software, or source-available licenses which come with certain restrictions. But by definition, it isn't open source or free software.
- 3y ago

3abiton 3y ago

Doesn't certain licenses (like MIT) prevent exactly that?

paulryanrogers 3y ago
MIT only requires attribution. A fork can still monetize the original work with minimal changes. A trademark could help at least protect the name. Or if they stripped all attribution then a legal case could be made.

chimpanzee 3y ago

Truly sorry for your experience. Hopefully it ends well, but if not you may find use of the philosophy of Jeff Tweedy: …And if the whole world's singing your songs And all of your paintings have been hung Just remember what was yours is everyone's from now on And that's not wrong or right But you can struggle with it all you like You'll only get uptight…” - “What Light” by Wilco

avodonosov 3y ago

> Next time I’ll be more aggressive with promotion. Why not this time? If you are interested to promote your extension, you can do it now. Your extension is still there. Another question is for how long YouTube and Chrome will allow it to work. (They may also feel disappointed).

rKarpinski 3y ago
> Why not this time? The drama killed my enthusiasm and at the end of the day it was a silly side project. Have more important things to do if it is not fun. > Another question is for how long YouTube and Chrome will allow it to work. (They may also feel disappointed). It'd probably have to get orders of magnitudes more users for YouTube to do something. But not every streaming site is as laissez faire; Hulu detects it if you set it to the max speed (16x) and Twitch is more obfuscated.

Too 3y ago

To give some nuance, here is the other side of that story https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463233 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38463233 Can’t say I understand all the background but really… the extension is 50 lines of trivial js. Claiming someone stole it is quite bold. And as we all know, ideas are worth nothing, can’t really claim this idea is that novel either. Assuming the other party even took inspiration, the timeline of who did what first is not entirely clear.

rKarpinski 3y ago
I said he copied, not stole. In terms of timeline... here is him commenting on my the shown HN post I made https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38328305 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38328305 here is his days later https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38398571 https://news.ycombinator.com/context?id=38398571
- laborcontract 3y ago
  If it's any consolation to you, I have a very oddly specific memory about this. I didn't follow any drama or didn't know that there was drama. But I do remember your original post and then seeing the second post a few days later thinking, “wait, why is this being so highly upvoted when we all front-paged this a few days ago?”
  - rKarpinski 3y ago
    haha thanks. And I documented it all in the blog post I wrote way back when [1] there really isn't any question about timeline or if it was inspired. At the end of the day, it was a silly project I built and I got 20k users! It didn't feel great to be copied and have them get 15x more traction. Whatever the thoughts are around that... the reason I posted today was the relevancy to the parent extension because within weeks they tried to (or did) sell the extension's user base (presumably to bad actors). I had no idea how shady the extension world was before this, and I'm much more conservative about which ones I'll install now. [1] https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_post.md#what-is-property--pierre-joseph-proudhon https://github.com/rkk3/ad-accelerator/blob/main/lessons_pos...

Amailman 3y ago

Not to mention, the other app has open webpages and other scummy, unsolicited behaviour. Whereas yours just does what it's supposed to.

rKarpinski 3y ago
Yep then it likely changed ownership to exploit the user base, which their recent reviews seem to point to https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-speedup-skip-video-ads/pcjlckhhhmlefmobnnoolakplfppdchi/reviews https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/ad-speedup-skip-vid...