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Rug pulls, forks, and open-source feudalism

(lwn.net)
275 points pabs3 | 1 comments | 06 Sep 25 05:59 UTC | HN request time: 0.197s | source
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evantbyrne ◴[06 Sep 25 14:12 UTC] No.45149415[source]▶
It's not possible to rug pull an open-source project by just switching new work to a different license. The real issue with open-source is that we don't live in a utopia where you can publish all of your work for free and still live a quality of life comparable to working at an average developer job, and yet so many non-maintainers somehow feel they are owed future labor. Maintainers come and go. Without sponsorship, the half life on maintainers is going to be relatively short, and more developers are going to be pushed to publishing less permissively.
replies(2): >>45150522 #>>45151375 #
1. redwall_hp ◴[06 Sep 25 17:48 UTC] No.45151375[source]▶
I'm reminded of the infamous Mojang/Microsoft fiasco with the Bukkit community. They gave no support to a project, after "secretly" acquiring it when they hired some of the developers, letting a volunteer work hard for years maintaining it.

He was rightfully outraged when he discovered he had basically done years of free labor for Microsoft, and ended up leveraging a DMCA notice to shutter the project, due to the lack of a CLA and the inherent nature of Bukkit being ultimately glued onto the Mojang server jar to be useful.

https://blog.jwf.io/2020/04/open-source-minecraft-bukkit-gpl...