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My open source project was relicensed by a YC company [license updated]

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931 points sohzm | 2 comments | 04 Jul 25 02:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.024s | source
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Disposal8433 ◴[04 Jul 25 04:03 UTC] No.44461043[source]▶
And it has the same fake excuse as usual "Since this was our first OSS project, we didn’t realize at first."

He sure discovered this new open source thing and it's very confusing. It's not like it's almost 40 years old at that point. I'll never understand people who lie like toddlers.

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h4ck_th3_pl4n3t ◴[04 Jul 25 06:57 UTC] No.44461821[source]▶
This incompetence excuse puts YC in a bad spotlight too, because it makes them look like they are funding people with exact zero software development experience.
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aleph_minus_one ◴[04 Jul 25 08:42 UTC] No.44462515[source]▶
> because it makes them look like they are funding people with exact zero software development experience.

Being a great software developer does not make you a lawyer (not even a bad lawyer).

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senko ◴[04 Jul 25 09:15 UTC] No.44462749[source]▶
You don't need to be a lawyer to understand you can't just copy others' IP without checking if you're allowed to.

By your argument, I can just torrent moviez and appz because I'm not a lawyer and can't be bothered with minutae of copyright law.

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1. aleph_minus_one ◴[04 Jul 25 09:28 UTC] No.44462850[source]▶
> By your argument, I can just torrent movies and appz becuase I'm not a lawyer and can't be bothered with minutae of copyright law.

Indeed, there exist people who argue that in many areas law has become so complicated and unclear what is allowed or not that you cannot thus expect from ordinary citizens to obey the laws anymore - even if these citizens are willing to.

Thus politicians do have an obligation to make the laws as clear, logical and comprehensible as possible, otherwise they loose their legitimization of expecting citizens to obey them.

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2. senko ◴[04 Jul 25 09:50 UTC] No.44462995[source]▶
Yes. Personally I believe current copyright law is a massive outreach and mostly serves established big companies, not small creators and innovators. I'd like to see it curtailed by a lot.

That's no excuse for a VC-backed startup just ignoring it and YOLOing their way.

This actually disincentivises small creators (open source maintainers and contributors, in this case) from participanting in the very thing copyright is supposed to foster.