• lysdexic@programming.dev
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    8 months ago

    ${CORPORATION} has profited off of Redis without giving much back (…)

    I don’t understand this blend of comment.

    If you purposely release your work as something anyone in the world is free to use and change to adapt to their own personal needs without any expectation of retribution or compensation, why are you complaining that people are using your work without any retribution or compensation?

    More to the point, why are you singling out specific adopters while leaving out the bulk of your community?

    It makes absolutely no sense at all.

    • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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      8 months ago

      There’s generally an understanding (the GPL folks think it’s naive – and this makes their case) that if you use open source software you should give back to it.

        • alr@programming.dev
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          8 months ago

          If you’re random Joe Schmoe who happens to need a database, I don’t expect you to contribute. But when you’re of the largest tech firms in the world…

        • silasmariner@programming.dev
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          7 months ago

          Absolutely not true. I know this is just my experience, but I’ve worked with plenty of devs who’ve contributed prs and/or donations back to OSS projects in the past, and all my former employers have opensourced at least some of their software

        • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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          8 months ago

          It does, AGPL for servers, GPL for applications… If you make changes they have to be made available or you’re breaking the law.

          • matcha_addict@lemy.lol
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            8 months ago

            You only have to give back if yours literally redistributing a modified version of the thing.

            If you use the software without modifying it directly (such as building on top of it, or building something that uses it), then that’s allowed.

            Also if you make use of the software commercially, without necessarily distributing it, then that’s also allowed. For example, Google could (I think they actually already do) modify the Linux kernel, and use it all across their company internally. They don’t have to give back, since they don’t distribute it.

            And last, if you don’t modify the software but charge people using it, that’s completely allowed.

            • Dark Arc@social.packetloss.gg
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              8 months ago

              If you use the software without modifying it directly (such as building on top of it, or building something that uses it), then that’s allowed.

              (IANAL)

              Not in the case of AGPL (use over the network and IPC counts as distribution – presumably proxying the request is insufficient to disable this clause) and even in the case of GPL that’s a very problematic position to put yourself on. You’re basically talking about invoking a foreign process from your primary process to avoid licensing constraints and that comes with a lot of limitations as to what you can do.

              You can modify the GPL program to support more things via IPC but then if that program needs to touch a customer’s computer, you have to contribute at the very least those notifications and any related improvements you made to make that possible or any new feature which makes more sense to be in the tool you’re calling than your tool building on top.

              And last, if you don’t modify the software but charge people using it, that’s completely allowed.

              Yes, but who’s paying for that? If it’s a server hosting company, they’ll pay the hardware rental fee, fair enough. However, you can’t reasonably sell that software itself, people will just build it themselves.

    • brbposting@sh.itjust.works
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      8 months ago

      without any expectation requirement of retribution or compensation

      I won’t require you to upvote my excellent comment, but I sure expect it!

      Paragraph three is solid on Wiki: reciprocity - we needs it!

    • merthyr1831@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      can guarantee that if redis was closed source from the beginning, Amazon would’ve just made their own clone internally just to avoid paying someone else.