MadhuGururajan

joined 10 months ago
[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

Apparently you want me to point out where I took the developer's words but intentions are not words. You're deliberately trying to argue that I am accusing the dev of things they did not do, but that's not true. I am only arguing on their actions and assigning motive to their actions which I make clear in all my comments.

You're the one who is calling people entitled for expecting LGPL code to be FOSS. I am merely replying to your comments.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The history change was probably to avoid violating the LGPL. If any contributors don't agree with the change (or you don't want to do the onerous task of getting consensus as required) you should remove their contributions from the work you make closed source as the contributions still come under LGPL until the original author consents to the change.

Or at least that's what people said here.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

Right, people usually carry a banner stating their intentions clearly and unambiguously.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

not enough people donated

Sounds like entitlement to me

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Only to a certain extent.

The problem is that a lot of software is very complex and requires full-time development/maintenance. It's simply not possible to work on stuff for free unless this is just a hobby and you can sustain yourself with a main job.

The main thing I have a problem with this instance is the following sequence of events

  1. The developer licensed it as LGPL.
  2. They did not accept ANY contributions to the code.
  3. The project became popular enough for people to post about in the fediverse (quite popular then, I guess)
  4. They got donations for their work, but apparently it was not enough.
  5. They removed the project from being accessible and moved to a paid only model.

This tells me:

  1. Their intention all along was to abuse FOSS community for popularity, traction, clout and free testing by people who are also doing this stuff in their free time.
  2. They got donations, but for whatever reason it was not enough for them. => Were they expecting to make retirement level income from their project which is in a crowded segment?
[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 4 points 9 months ago

Hey, A lot of people spent their precious free time to look at your project, test it out, and talking about it to their colleagues. How are you going to pay us for wasting however many minutes or hours of time spent on your supposedly open source project before you did the bait-and-switch?

(By "you" I meant the developer.)

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago

Donations can give you hobby money. Not "multi-millionaire, going to retire" money. If people who start FOSS projects don't want to admit that, then they are just looking for free popularity/shortcut to success. They can stop abusing the FLOSS community just so they can make a quick buck.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 2 points 9 months ago (4 children)

It's quite entitled and dishonest to expect free beta-testing, marketing, and clout from the use of FOSS as a shortcut for your product.

If you are sincere then you should know what you are getting into when you create that license.txt with LGPL terms on it.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 5 points 9 months ago

Read my comment and enlighten all of us on how stealing free testing work from the community under the pretense of "open source" is not entitlement? How is this project going to compensate users for beta testing their software for free?

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 8 points 9 months ago (3 children)

The amount of people who feel like they’re entitled to the previous code and are calling the license change scummy make me sick.

But you're not sick at the fact that they licensed it as LGPL just to get their product popular and then said "I got the eyeballs I wanted, time to milk this!"

This developer put their own free time into this project

When your code is open source the expectation is that you are sharing code with people for free so that the community can enjoy the work and hopefully you gain respect and popularity as your product matures and a lot of people utilize it. People might even fund you for your hard work if you become popular enough. Maybe a whole new product gets developed on top of your product and you become important. That's how a lot of successful open source projects work.

If you are entitled to quick success, we are entitled to our ideology around FLOSS.

they made sure to not accept anyone else’s code.

So they just wanted people to test their product and market them for free? Who's entitled here?

(Also that argument is not going to work in court when people sue them for violating LGPL terms)

and they understandably felt they deserve to be paid for their time

What about the compensation for people who beta-tested this product for free and recommended them to others?

But otherwise, you should really reflect on how you’re giving back to the people who make the tools you feel oh so entitled to.

The giving back part is increasing respect, popularity, and a community of contributors who will grow YOUR product for free. Don't act like this small project is a gift from God.

Also, the author literally didn't accept contributions. That just means they were looking for free marketing and eyeballs. As soon as it was convenient for them to pull the rug they did so without even thinking about the community. Who's the scumbag, you tell me?

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 1 points 9 months ago (8 children)

You should blame software makers and hardware vendors. Not Linux. There isn't a Linux company that pays for vendor lock-in.

[–] MadhuGururajan@programming.dev 1 points 9 months ago

LemmyIsFantastic is a corporate shill or an unpaid troll. Don't bother wasting your breath.

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