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

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931 points sohzm | 1 comments | 04 Jul 25 02:04 UTC | HN request time: 0.369s | source
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tombert ◴[04 Jul 25 03:25 UTC] No.44460923[source]▶
Things like this are why I have become disillusioned with Open Source, and why latest projects have been closed source. The GPL is a good enough idea but it is basically impossible for anyone to realistically enforce. If a corporation is selling an optimized binary, then it can be almost impossible to prove that there was any violation of the GPL without viewing the source.
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rfl890 ◴[04 Jul 25 03:32 UTC] No.44460940[source]▶
Well, if you're writing open source because you want to write open source, then none of this matters. If you are worried about corporations stealing your work, that should drive you away from OSS. OSS should stay "hobbyist" for the individual developer.
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tombert ◴[04 Jul 25 03:41 UTC] No.44460972[source]▶
Sure but it sort of devalues labor.

If a corporation is stealing your OSS code (and violating a license) then that implies that they think your code has value, they might have paid a person to write that code but instead some hobbyist built it for free and a corporation steals it.

A few months ago, I made a pull request to LMAX Disruptor, which was merged. I was initially excited because even if my PR was simple it’s still a big project that I contributed to. But after a few minutes it occurred to me that I just did free labor for a for-profit trading company. If they merged in my code then must have thought it had some value, and I decided to dedicate my time to saving this multi million dollar company some money.

My PR there was pretty simple and only took me like 30 minutes (if that), so I am not going to cry too hard over this, but it’s just something that made me realize that if a company is going to use my work, they should pay me. I don’t think it’s wrong or weird to want to be compensated for my labor.

I am still a hobbyist. Turns out you can still be a hobbyist without sharing everything you’ve ever done on GitHub.

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bawolff ◴[04 Jul 25 07:51 UTC] No.44462201[source]▶
> But after a few minutes it occurred to me that I just did free labor for a for-profit trading company. If they merged in my code then must have thought it had some value, and I decided to dedicate my time to saving this multi million dollar company some money.

If you're not ok with that possibility than you probably shouldn't be participating in open source.

And to be clear, there is nothing wrong with that. Its up to each individual to decide how they want to spend there time. There are pros and cons to open source, and you have to weigh how you feel about them yourself.

However, its not like this is some secret trick. Its the central tenant of Open Source (esp. When using that name instead of Free software). It should be very clear that this is happening. Its the entire point.

It kind of feels a bit like someone who doesn't like oranges, eats oranges, and then are surprised that they taste like oranges. By all means if you don't like oranges don't eat them, but if you knew you didn't like them why did you eat it in the first place?

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tombert ◴[04 Jul 25 11:41 UTC] No.44463646[source]▶
It’s just why I have become disillusioned with it. I think companies exploit well-meaning people that should be paid for their work. I have used Linux and open source tools for roughly the last twenty years, a part of me loves open source, but I think that big corporations take advantage of this love and it devalues labor.

Which is why I have stopped participating in it. If I am doing work that provides value to a company then they should pay me for it.

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1. baobun ◴[04 Jul 25 12:09 UTC] No.44463824[source]▶
Here's what I figured: Company misallocates fund. On the other hand, many engineers are overpaid from the same perspective (most of us here are, have been, or will be at some point, if we step out of the bubble and stop gawking at the acquihire next door). So I'm happy to shift my side of the scale a tad bit by donating a few k here and there. We can do the reallocation ourselves and the more who do, the more difference it can start to make.

Which reminds me, it's about that time.