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Hackpad released as opensource, then nothing
- shiven 11y agoMoral of the story? Use GPL. If only Etherpad had done so in the first place.
- VieElm 11y agoIf EtherPad had been GPL I have my doubts Hackpad would have ever been forked from it or if Hackpad would have even been a thing.
- quadrangle 11y agoSo, maybe more people would have used and even contributed to Etherpad then… who knows
- rspeer 11y agoEtherpad was completely unmaintainable when it was shut down as a service and open-sourced. Its first, open-source major rewrite (etherpad-lite) didn't work. It took a second major rewrite by a profit-motivated startup (Hackpad) to become useful again. I think that if Etherpad had been GPLed, we would still have nothing but etherpad-lite, and we would lament Etherpad as a lost technology.
- kentonv 11y agoI'm curious what you mean when you say etherpad-lite "didn't work". I use it fairly regularly and while I'll agree it's not nearly as refined as Hackpad, it seems to basically function. (Note that I'm not debating the GPL point. I don't personally think Hackpad's forking the code has had any meaningful effect on etherpad-lite's popularity; there are plenty of collaborative document editors out there.)
- rspeer 11y agoIt would corrupt its data when too many people were using it at the same time.
- castell 11y agoWrong. The current Etherpad open source project and what you mean are not the same. The first one is the predecessor of Google Wave Java based product, and the current one "Etherpad Lite" is a JavaScript & Node.js based open source project - a reimplementation, possible as Google open sourced the original Java code. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etherpad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Etherpad
- kentonv 11y agoEtherpad was not a predecessor to Wave -- Wave was already released when Etherpad was acquired. They did use similar ideas, though.
- gst 11y agoYou probably mean AGPL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affero_General_Public_License)? The GPL wouldn't have made a difference, as it doesn't require you to release the source of something that you run as a web service.
- MichaelCrawford 11y agoThe Web is the Ultimate Copy Protection http://advogato.org/article/216.html http://advogato.org/article/216.html
- PebblesHD 11y agoFascinating article, and with original comments from 2000, neat! It's interesting to see the arguments for and against protections of these sorts haven't changed in a long time.
- MichaelCrawford 11y agoI emailed the link to RMS. (He's very good about replying to mail.) He responded by saying that he was aware of the problem, and wanted to solve it but could not do so anytime soon.
- MichaelCrawford 11y agoTo be clear, I mailed him the link in 2000.
- shurcooL 11y agoI don't think that's a good reason to use GPL. I think it's better for something to be open source when its creator wants it to be open, not because they're forced to.
- timonovici 11y agoGPL wouldn't made a difference here, since it's a web service. The AGPL story is different. I think you are too trusting when you say that the creator goodwill will prevail - as an author, you are better off making this enforceable, even if you don't plan to sue anyone. Also, one can go the MySQL way - dual licensing. You end up with more options in hands by using AGPL, and that's a good thing.
- Sharma 11y agoIt is called "Hackpad". You might need to hack it to see it.
- rattray 11y agoI think Dropbox is the entity we should be disappointed in here. They clearly want to be good citizens of the community, but this is a sign of "evil megacorpdom" that rather contrasts with "employs Guido Van Rossum to work on Python and sponsors Pyston". I hope we're able to demonstrate to their M&A team that moves like this hurt their reputation and make it harder for them to hire & acquire.
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago> I think Dropbox is the entity we should be disappointed in here. They clearly want to be good citizens of the community Maybe or maybe not. I don't see any evidence (yet at least) that shows this is either Dropbox's or the original team's doing. I'm curious as to why they'd announce it then not go through with it without saying something to the community.
- eli 11y agoI'd be really careful in assuming malice.
- rattray 11y agoThanks for clarifying - this is much more likely a sign that "dropbox doesn't have their shit together, and acquiring things is hard" than "dropbox is trying to be evil". But I would expect a company at their stage to communicate clearly and consistently about promises they make to the community, execute against them, and then issue prompt apologies with explanations and timelines when they don't follow through.
- tylercubell 11y agoWhat warrants the outrage here? An announcement doesn't create a binding obligation with a rigid timetable. The sense of entitlement is unreal.
- scintill76 11y agoWell, the announcement dated >2 months ago[0] does say "few weeks". It's past most definitions of "few weeks"... I think "entitlement" is too strong, but maybe it's impatience verging on concern that it will never be released. Is it really entitled to hold someone (even a company) to their plain word, even if not legally binding? At least, in the absence of further communication I think it's reasonable to start making some noise at this point. If Hackpad were to say they need more time, that would be another issue. (I have no stake or familiarity with this project.) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9352249 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9352249
- davidgerard 11y ago> What warrants the outrage here? Um, because marketing announcements that turn out to be lies warrant a reputational penalty?
- bhaumik 11y agoThey're probably just waiting until Dropbox Notes (which looks like a clone of HackHands now) is live. notes.dropbox.com
- kriro 11y agoThis is the kind of stuff that you just can't let happen if you're Dropbox. There have to be people in the company that read tech news regularly. Worst case you issue a statement that the release will be delayed indefinitely (or won't happen) due to the integration of Hackpad after the acquisition etc. Just not answering, not answering mail etc. is the worst thing you can do.
- HelloNurse 11y agoMaybe Hackpad is a very unimportant and low-priority part of Dropbox, and marketing/PR efforts and expenses over it are so out of the question that they don't care about their open source promise. Not even replying here is a sign of total neglect; I'd attribute this neglect to persistent emergencies diverting resources and management attention, or to incompetence, but not to a deliberate "evil" intent because the only thing to "steal" is a little amount of vague goodwill.
- kierank 11y agoNot as bad as Lightworks which has been on its way to being open source for years.