In this case though, it looks like Obvious did set out to attribute the original GAN author and Christie's have omitted that.
It’s not legally required to credit the author of the original code, but it’s a jerk move not to do so, especially if the work is primarily not your own.
All it does is discourage developers from releasing things open source, which is very bad in the long run.
What on earth are you on about!? The author has every possible opportunity to set out whatever he wants in the license. If he wants anyone who uses it to name their firstborn after him he can put that in there. If he doesn’t then there is absolutely no issue or nothing jerk-like of anyone who follows to the letter he license the author decided to use.
It’s up to the author to specify what he wants, and as long as users follow the license that’s their right.
If you want a license that only allows non commercial usage to be unattributed but requires attribution for commercial usage... then use such a license. Don’t just put it up under a permissive license and rely on calling people jerks when they literally do what you specified and gave them license to do.
> all it does is discourage developers from releasing things open source...
Great! Developers who don’t want others to use their software under an open license shouldn’t be releasing it under an open license in the first place! You have all the control as a creator, don’t give it away and then complain that you gave it away like it’s someone else’s fault for using the license you gave them.
I hear an increasing amount of talk as if ethics is or can be entirely contained within law, as if behaving legally is all that can or should be asked of us as humans. I don't know if it's the pervasive influence of lawyers and corporate 'culture' or what. In that "greed is good" etc mindset, 'being a jerk' isn't a bad thing, it's merely not being a sap, using your freedoms, using accepted business principles etc. Your whole comment smells of that total absence of ethics, beyond obeying the law, i.e. no ethics. Sorry if I misunderstood. Maybe your "What on earth are you on about!?" etc was exaggerated for rhetorical effect, and not what it seemed - having no clue why someone might call it 'a jerk move', or feel it was unfair/rude/graceless/exploitative etc.
There’s nothing unethical about respecting people’s freely chosen and publicly expressed wishes.
This is the same trap I see 40-somethings falling into time after time, acting like AGPLv3 is evil while complaining how their (non-copyleft, open source) projects are widely used, extended and not contributed back to by those that use them. If your building a totally new platform in an area with no existing tools, strong copyleft is not a bad choice.
Why is it being a jerk to engage in a behavior that someone freely gave their blessing to?
Is it, though? In terms of keeping a health job market, I'm somewhat skeptical that offering things license to allow even commercial usages for free is necessarily a long-term good for me.
The problem with this is that it disincentivizes the sharing mentality. Nobody wants to be the guy who gets taken advantage of, yet everyone benefits from free sharing of knowledge. And then once in a while you have dudes who swoop in and make everyone look stupid and make them re-think whether they should ever share their findings with others again.
Obvious could make this right if they wanted to. Yet they are standing their ground on Twitter, it seems.
This loses the important nuance that them swooping in and slapping a price tag on their own use of the implementation doesn't deprive anyone of access to the original on the same terms they were able to access it.
No one has lost anything in this scenario.
>The problem with this is that it disincentivizes the sharing mentality.
Personally, I feel arguing over how people make use of freely shared knowledge does more harm a culture of sharing than usage of said knowledge, even when that usage pushes right up to the bounds of what is allowed under whichever license.