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Comment by zombodb | Hacker News Reader

When one develops using open-source software they have an obligation to follow the licenses. They also have a moral obligation to be respectful of the work upon which they’re building. And they have a social obligation to help improve that software where they can.

Those that develop on top of open-source have no obligation to give you their work for free.

You’d be surprised as to the amount of open-source contributions TIN drove towards Postgres, LLVM, and pgrx. And you’d be speechless at the amount of upstream work across all sorts of open-source PlanetScale does. Postgres 18.6, for example, is better for you today, in part, because of TIN. You’re welcome.

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> You’re welcome.

I didn't say thank you and don't presume I would, Planetscale acting in their own self interest by improving postgres upstream isn't deserving of thanks, any more than Intel upstreaming a bunch of Linux kernel work is or myriad other examples.

Corporations acting in their self interest isn't worth giving thanks for, neither is the work of the people paid to do work on their behalf.

I don't expect my employer to thank me, I expect them to pay me, I don't expect users of software I was paid to write to thank me because I did it for the money not out of altruism towards those users.

It’s clear that we’re on opposite ends of open-source ideology.

Good luck out there! 2026 is wild times!!

You as well, and yes it's very "may you live in interesting times" at the moment everywhere.

>Planetscale acting in their own self interest by improving postgres upstream isn't deserving of thanks,

And that is in the context of

>Fully proprietary no issue with that,

I guess I learned something new everyday.

Everything else aside

> Those that develop on top of open-source have no obligation to give you their work for free.

This is a pretty narrow view of open source.

Just as a simple example, GPLv3 and AGPLv3 are both considered Open Source and, depending on how you hold them, may obligate releasing work to customers essentially for free.

I thought I was clear:

> When one develops using open-source software they have an obligation to follow the licenses.

Obviously what follows from one of those licenses is what you say.

I’m glad we agree!

"...are both considered Open Source" << Free Software (GPL) is the O.G. - it's like saying "George Washington is considered to be an American President" or "The Beatles are considered to be a pop/rock band" or "water is considered to be..."

I remember so well when "Open Source" branding started with Bruce Perens - all the business arguments. When you need a database, someone ELSE'S business decisions (how THEY are going to make money) never end up helping YOU. If you use proprietary extensions and become dependent on them, you inevitably will get BURNED when their business needs diverge from your needs. - They close shop - They refuse to interop with something you need - They demand that you obey their arcane rules - They rug-pull - They get hacked as only they can - They lie to you - They stab you in the back

> When one develops using open-source software they have an obligation to follow the licenses.

Agreed!

> They also have a moral obligation to be respectful of the work upon which they’re building.

Respectfully, completely disagree!

Open source is a license, not a moral framework. Your only duty is to abide by the license. If you want to enforce that everything built on top of a particular open source package also be open source, that belongs in the license.

> Your only duty is to abide by the license.

We live in a society. I don’t see any harm in believing we ought to be respectful of the work. That’s all I’m saying. You don’t have to be, but it’s a better world if you are.

> If you want to enforce that everything built on top of a particular open source package also be open source, that belongs in the license.

Yes! I fully agree. The one that creates the thing is the one that gets to choose its license.

Having opened-sourced some bit of work myself, that’s a very difficult decision.

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