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submitted 10 months ago by throws_lemy@lemmy.nz to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[-] ramenshaman@lemmy.world 71 points 10 months ago

Pardon my ignorance but how do you steal code if it's open source?

[-] hperrin@lemmy.world 220 points 10 months ago

You don’t follow the license that it was distributed under.

Commonly, if you use open source code in your project and that code is under a license that requires your project to be open source if you do that, but then you keep yours closed source.

[-] fidodo@lemmy.world 43 points 10 months ago

I still wouldn't call it stealing, but I guess "broke open source code licenses" doesn't have the same impact, but I'd prefer accuracy.

[-] bamboo@lemm.ee 92 points 10 months ago

It’s piracy, distributing copyrighted works against the terms of its license. I agree stealing is not really the right word.

[-] tb_@lemmy.world 1 points 10 months ago

Distributing it would be one thing, but profiting off it?

[-] thanks_shakey_snake@lemmy.ca 23 points 10 months ago

I think it makes the most sense to think of it like stealing the way plagiarism is stealing.

[-] KeenFlame@feddit.nu 13 points 10 months ago

I wouldn't call pirating stealing either so

[-] Even_Adder@lemmy.dbzer0.com 76 points 10 months ago

He took GPLv3 code, which is a copyleft license that requires you share your source code and license your project under the same terms as the code you used. You also can't distribute your project as a binary-only or proprietary software. When pressed, they only released the code for their front end, remaining in violation of GPLv3.

[-] Miaou@jlai.lu 5 points 10 months ago

Probably the reason they're moving to a Web offering. They could just take down the binary files and be gpl compliant, this whole thing is so stupid

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 5 points 10 months ago

I think that's what AGPL tries to prevent

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 4 points 10 months ago

Yes, but if the code they took is not AGPL then this loophole still applies

[-] Kusimulkku@lemm.ee 3 points 10 months ago

Yes, I meant more that AGPL was created to plug this particular loophole. As in, if it was AGPL, they couldn't do this.

[-] sukhmel@programming.dev 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

That's true

Although I personally am not a fan of licences this strict, MIT+Apache2.0 seems good enough for me. Of course, that might change with time and precedents like this 😅

this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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