Comment by imiric | Hacker News Reader

Comment by imiric | Hacker News Reader

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You might want to think about my argument a bit more.

> Is it less-ethical to have provided software as open source, and then later become a proprietary product? Why?

Because usually these companies use OSS as a marketing gimmick, not because they believe in it, or want to contribute to a public good. So, yes, this dishonesty is user hostile, and some companies with proprietary products do have more respect for their users. The freedoms provided by free software are a value add on top of essential values that any developer/company should have for the users of their software. OSS projects are not inherently better simply because the code is free to use, share, and modify.

To be fair, I don't think a developer/company should be expected to maintain an OSS project indefinitely. Priorities change, life happens. But being a good OSS steward means making this transition gradually, trying to find a new maintainer, etc., to avoid impacting your existing user base. Archiving the project and demanding payment is the epitome of hostile behavior.

It seems like you’re trying to build a system of ethics around being annoyed by OSS maintainers not working for free in perpetuity.

Having access to Apache licensed code that you can build off of is better than never having access to any code at all. Anything else about values or respect has to be inferred or imagined and has no bearing on the software itself.

Edit: Like who cares if they “wanted” to contribute to the public good? Did they actually contribute to the public good? It seems like they did and the code that did so is right there. If “life happens” then why are they obligated to do a smooth transition?

I love free stuff as much as the next person, hell, free stuff is my favorite kind of stuff. Is it annoying when there’s less free stuff? Yes. Does my personal irritation constitute a violation of a lofty set of ideals that just coincidentally dictates that nobody annoy me? No.

I would love to live in a world where it just so happens that it’s ethically wrong to bother me though. That would be sweet.

That's what they always do it always comes down to a sense of perpetual entitlement over the work of others, work they themselves would never do.

I've had the same discussion for years now on HN. It is not unethical to decide to stop supporting something especially if you played by all the rules the entire time.

No one is owed perpetual labor and they completely disregard localstack has been oss for something like 10 years at this point just celebrate it had a good run, fork and maintain yourself if you need it that badly.

It is incredibly weird to think something that was maintained oss for 10 years is a rugpull that's just called life, circumstances change.

> I've had the same discussion for years now on HN. It is not unethical to decide to stop supporting something especially if you played by all the rules the entire time.

What's unethical is taking yhe fruits of other people's work private: ranging from code contributions, through bug reports and evangelism.

Companies are never honest about how they intend to use CLAs and pretend its for the furtherance of open source ethos. Thankfully, there's an innate right to fork entire projects after rug pulls, whixh makes them calculated gambles amd nor a quick heist.

> What's unethical is taking yhe fruits of other people's work private: ranging from code contributions, through bug reports and evangelism.

First, if it's open source, then the contributions are still there for everyone to use.

Second, if the license allows it, then the license allows it.

Now, if the contributions were made with a contribution license to prevent it, you've got a solid argument. Otherwise you're applying your own morals in a situation where they're irrelevant.

I agree, along with the child comment. I think the issue is that if there wasn't some kind of ability to "rug pull," that we would see far fewer open source contributions in the first place.

I hate that a company can take a fully open-source project, and then turn it into a commercial offering, dropping support for the project's open source model. I am fine with a project's maintainers stopping support for a project because they have other things to deal with, or just are burnt out. I understand that both of these things are allowed under the specific license you choose, and still believe you should have the freedom to do what was done here (although not agreeing with the idea of what was done, I still think it should be allowed). If you want to guarantee your code is allowed to live on as fully open, you pick that license. If you don't, but want to contribute as a means to selling your talent, I still think the world would have far less software if this was discouraged. The source is still legal from before the license was changed, and I feel that even if the project doesn't get forked, it is still there for others to learn from.

With that said I'm wondering if there has ever been a legal case where source was previously fully open source, then became closed source, and someone was taken to court over using portions of the code that was previously open. It seems like it would be cut and dry about the case being thrown out, but what if the code was referenced, and then rewritten? What if there was code in the open source version that obviously needed to be rewritten, but the authors closed the source, and then someone did the obvious rewrite? This is more of a thought experiment than anything, but I wonder if there's any precedent for this, or if you'd just have to put up the money for attorneys to prove that it was an obvious change?

> Second, if the license allows it, then the license allows it.

I'm not arguing the legality. One can be a jerk while complying with the letter of the license.

I stopped signing CLAs, and I feel bad for those suckered into signing CLAs - based on a deliberate lie that they are joining a "community" - when the rug pull is inevitably attempted. I hate that "open source as a growth hack" have metastisized onto rug pull long cons.

> Otherwise you're applying your own morals in a situation where they're irrelevant.

Sharing my opinion on an HN thread about an open source rug-pull is extremely relevant.

The ethical problem is the bait-and-switch. A project that begins open and remains open is no problem; a project that begins closed and remains closed is no problem (ethically); a project that begins closed and becomes open is no ethical problem either. But a project that begins open, advertises their openness to the world, uses their openness to attract lots of community interest and then suddenly becomes closed is pulling a bait-and-switch, or rugpull.

> a project that begins open, advertises their openness to the world, uses their openness to attract lots of community interest and then suddenly becomes closed

Do you have any examples of that happening? When I click on the link at the top of this thread it takes me to a GitHub repo with a bunch of Apache licensed code that is open to anyone that wants to use or modify or build off of however they want. Heck, with permissive licensing like that you or I could fork it and put any part/all of that code into a proprietary product and make money off of it if we wanted to, and that would be entirely in keeping with the spirit and practice of FOSS.

This project seems perfectly open from what I can see, looks like the original devs stopped working on it though

Precisely.

It's remarkable that people think releasing a project as OSS is a license to disrespect users. This isn't even related to OSS. Software authors should have basic decency and respect for the users of their software. This relationship starts with that.

Publishing a project as OSS doesn't relinquish you from this responsibility. It doesn't give you the right to be an asshole.

And yet we fall for this trap time and time again, and there are always those who somehow defend this behavior.

I think it's an inherent conflict with the entrepreneurship mindset and those who visit this forum. Their primary goal is to profit from software. OSS is seen as a "gift" and an act of philanthropy, rather than a social movement to collaborate on building public goods. That's silly communism, after all. I'm demanding that people work for free for my benefit! Unbelievable.

Wow.

"Software authors should have basic decency and respect for the users of their software." Why? Not at all.

"Publishing a project as OSS doesn't relinquish you from this responsibility. It doesn't give you the right to be an asshole." You are free to be asshole and it's nobody's business.

Actually it's exactly opposite. Such feeling of superiority and privilege, that just because you use some software, you have any right to command its author is the very definition of being an asshole.

"I'm demanding that people work for free for my benefit! Unbelievable." Yes, that's unbelievable.

> "Software authors should have basic decency and respect for the users of their software." Why? Not at all.

Because that's the core reason why we build software in the first place. We solve problems for people. Software doesn't exist in a void. There's an inherent relationship created between software authors and its users. This exists for any good software, at least. If you think software accomplishes its purpose by just being published, regardless of its license, you've failed at the most fundamental principle of software development.

> you have any right to command its author is the very definition of being an asshole.

Hah. I'm not "commanding" anyone anything. I'm simply calling out asshole behavior. The fact is that software from authors who behave like this rarely amounts to anything. It either dies in obscurity, or is picked up by someone who does care about their users.

> "I'm demanding that people work for free for my benefit! Unbelievable." Yes, that's unbelievable.

Clearly sarcasm goes over your head, since I'm mimicking what you and others think I'm saying. But feel free to continue to think I'm coming from a place of moral superiority and privilege.

If you want software to be free for everyone except for the authors to use, modify, distribute, and sell without restriction I am sure you could work with a lawyer to draft a new “Apache for everybody on earth other than the maintainers, who permanently waive all rights” license.

If that’s what all good maintainers do, and intend to do, there’s really no reason for maintainers to tempt themselves by using awful “open” licenses that allow them the loophole of doing what they want with the software they create. Plus who wouldn’t want to codify that they’re not an asshole?

It shouldn’t be hard to get maintainers that intend for their software to “amount to something” to adopt it, and it would bring a sense of comfort to the people that rely on the software that you write when you announce that it’s the new default license for everything in your repos.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Your argument is about some sort of covenant between the developers/maintainers and the users. That’s what a license is. That is the agreement between the parties. In that sense your problem isn’t with individual developers, it’s with permissive licensing.

If you don’t like it when OSS maintainers pivot to proprietary software, why not just create a license that precludes that from happening? The maintainers could waive their rights to pivot or later reuse the code that they wrote in any proprietary software, and that way people could just choose to only create and use NoRugPullForeverEver-licensed software and avoid the headaches altogether.

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