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> But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects Or seen from the other side, t
by embedding-shape 6mo ago
> But those license changes were a response to how AWS was monetizing their work in ways unsustainable for the upstream projects
Or seen from the other side, these projects chose initial licenses that didn't fit with their wants for how others should use their project, in this mind.
If you use a license that gives people the freedom to host your project as a service and make money that way, without paying you, and your goal was to make money that specific way, it kind of feels like you chose the wrong license here.
What was unsustainable (considering this perspective) was less that outside actors did what they were allowed to do, and more that they chose a license that was incompatible with their actual goals.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoThe situation changed. A license that's the right choice at one point may not be the right license a decade later.
- embedding-shape 6mo agoAgree, as long as existing contributors agree the license should be changed, projects should feel free to do so, no harm, no foul.
- ncruces 6mo agoThat's fair, but forking the FOSS version is also an adequate response.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoYes. But so would financially contributing to the folks who did the work.
- chii 6mo agoIf those folks wanted money for their work, they should be charging a price for it.
- ncruces 6mo agoSure. Since they're a for profit entity, they'll do whatever they think offers the best cost/benefit.
- tedivm 6mo agoAWS literally did that. They paid for full time developers to contribute back to the redis code base, including core redis developers. If you actually look at the redis code base the majority of it was written by people who never worked for redis.
- cylemons 6mo ago> If you actually look at the redis code base the majority of it was written by people who never worked for redis. Thats a really big deal, how did they legally managed to do the license change? I was under the impression that only works if the original owner is the doing most work
- sakjur 6mo agoPermissive licenses don't protect against projects that decide to change the license when releasing a new version. Copyleft protects against that as a general rule. However some projects that rely on copyleft require contributors to sign license agreements granting the project owners a more permissive license.
- jen20 6mo ago> Thats a really big deal, how did they legally managed to do the license change? I was under the impression that only works if the original owner is the doing most work Almost all of these license changes just change the terms under which _new_ work is contributed - which is why many of them have forks from the last OSI-licensed commit.
- cylemons 6mo agoNow that makes sense, so its legal because the contributors can still access their code
- jabwd 6mo agoI hate Amazon and monopolies, but I hate companies that think opensourcing their code as a marketing stunt gives them more rights or whatever. If you don't want to opensource, then don't?!
- sincerely 6mo agoI can’t agree more, this “our software is open source but we have unwritten rules about how you can use it or we’ll attempt to shame you” attitude is absurd
- tonyedgecombe 6mo agoI’m not sure any open source license is going to help when you can ask Claude to clone an application in the language of your choice.
- pessimizer 6mo agoIf Claude looks at the code when it does it, then you can still sue them. I don't think there's a "Claude Clean Room" product that trains on everything except the code you might be accused of copying. I can't just translate Harry Potter to Spanish and sell it.
- ceejayoz 6mo agoAnd yet: https://github.com/ultraworkers/claw-code https://github.com/ultraworkers/claw-code