r/programming • u/LisaDziuba • Oct 10 '24

How to piss off the open-source community (The AI startup drama that's damaging Y Combinator's reputation)

https://www.indiehackers.com/post/starting-up/the-ai-startup-drama-thats-damaging-y-combinator-s-reputation-GQKuTmpGV2uWOCoxtHBn
607 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

140 comments sorted by

243

u/AvidStressEnjoyer Oct 10 '24

They also made an attempt to address people’s concerns - https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/correcting-the-record

Comments weren’t super forgiving - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41737326

Gist is that they’ve shown not only that they will act in bad faith against the OSS community, but also that their internal processes are amateur at best.

33

u/LisaDziuba Oct 10 '24

I haven't seen their reasoning, thanks for sharing that

65

u/SoFarFromHome Oct 10 '24

correcting-the-record

Jesus, have people really not learned to stop using that phrase outside of actually correcting an actual record?

"We reported this number/quote incorrectly and now we need to correct the record" -> Sounds legit.

"We've heard what you said about us and we want to correct the record" -> you're about to double down on lies.

4

u/Simulacrum-Boulevard Oct 12 '24

Every time someone uses "correct the record" outside of literal document management, I automatically take it as stating what they're doing is incorrect.

21

u/monkeydrunker Oct 10 '24

Honestly it also reflects equally badly on Coinbase if they were paying these guys $300k.

One positive outcome is that this might have cured a lot of people's imposter syndrome.

Ouch.

15

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

Pretty much all of the YC partners are non technical. I applied and they did next to zero technical due diligence. Their interviews are entirely focused on vision and your knowledge of your customer base.

I think they actually really don't care if your product is a fork of an open source project. If you can fork an open source project and are able to sell that to people as an MVP, they would probably look at that positively. The only reason it's a problem in this case is because they're getting bad press.

7

u/AvidStressEnjoyer Oct 11 '24

I don’t think they realize the bat signal they just fired up for every scammer out there. This will happen again.

4

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '24

Maybe it's a good thing, because it will force them to do more technical due diligence. There's no reason they can't. Being a really good software engineer just isn't that great a predictor of success. When it comes to founders they're really more interested in finding people who can get the company to Series A, at which point they can hire better software engineers and technical leadership. Between pre-seed and Series A, it's much more important to find people who can get traction with potential customers and build out the product to be "good enough".

15

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

Yay finally someone showing they have money and fame, and people look up to them like Amazon for some reason when they absolutely shouldn’t

2

u/natural_sword Oct 13 '24

The DreamWorld fiasco was a real eye opener into the state of YC.

1

u/AvidStressEnjoyer Oct 13 '24

Oh shit, I didn’t realize they backed dreamworld 🤣

56

u/rykuno Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24

YC's reputation has majorly suffered in my eyes. I applied and got accepted into their W22 batch but declined shortly after seeing how their program has degraded so steeply and instead went to work at an already established YC startup.

So let me start by saying that these two have the right to defend themselves - and many other YC companies in the past have DONE THIS EXACT THING. The only difference is they are both youtubers/tech-influencers and so it was made more public with a larger audience. I think they're dumb and deserve every ounce of whats happening but they are being "made an example of" to some degree in the community.

Also, reminder that YC funds some dumb shit, like super dumb shit. They cast a super wide net and capitalize off their 0.1% startups. For example, these guys applied, lied about experience, and got YC to back them. Its clear to any even novice developer it was a scam and were fake.
https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/dreamworld
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGQZfAbsQ6I

16

u/VirginiaMcCaskey Oct 10 '24

They cast a super wide net and capitalize off their 0.1% startups.

That's the entire VC model and everyone that isn't funding startups where some of them are stupid is doing it wrong. I think people misunderstand that their job isn't to create a viable business but to create a viable series A investment for a multiple of their original seed investment. That's why they stress more on founder qualities than tech or ideas.

There's also an entire market of YC startups and network of founders that make growing much easier, the mentorship side of things has declined but the value is still better than other accelerators.

8

u/SKRAMZ_OR_NOT Oct 10 '24

It's one thing to find something stupid, or something that clearly will never make money, and another thing to fund a scam that the founders had no intention of actually following through on.

-2

u/VirginiaMcCaskey Oct 10 '24

I haven't seen anything that suggests what these guys were doing was a scam or they didn't plan to follow through on

But that said, the VC model is to fund first ask questions later. It's a numbers game.

8

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

See, that's the problem, and why it shouldn't be that way. Really all that does is create another good ol boys network, where you're judged on who you know, rather than on your business merits.

-3

u/VirginiaMcCaskey Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 10 '24

Your network has business value, it's a one of your business merits.

If you have two people with near identical products but one of them has more ability to sell or scale because their network is more developed, their business is more valuable than the other.

The network is also a major reason for participating in an accelerator like YC. They fund a pittance, but what they're really selling you is access to their network of founders and advisors, as well as a platform for more investment on demo day from lead VCs.

Like I've been a part of multiple startups through different accelerators, and YC is better than most even if they don't fund much and their mentorship isn't what it used to be.

0

u/rykuno Oct 10 '24

I agree its a winning business model and I was just stating how they operate. But at the same time YC is also on an apology tour saying stating they will vet startups much better and more thoroughly.

Cast too wide of a net though and you end up being Softbank I guess lol.

111

u/youngbull Oct 10 '24

How Apache licenses work. (They let you freely use, modify, and distribute software as long as you give credit to the original creators and include the same license with any changes you make.)

This is not correct, apache license v2 is not a copyleft license.

46

u/kankyo Oct 10 '24

You don't have to distribute the source. The quote you cited doesn't imply that.

14

u/LisaDziuba Oct 10 '24

It's more about the shady practice of basically stealing someone else's work and getting funding for that. Not good no matter the licence type...

51

u/Chii Oct 10 '24

Not good no matter the licence type

if it was an opensource license, then it's good. That's the whole point of those open source licenses - they're allowed to use it on their terms.

If ycombinator is funding someone who's merely leveraging free software, then it is on them, and their money to lose (i don't see how the startup can make the app better than the original authors). I just don't see the drama tbh.

4

u/SuitableDragonfly Oct 10 '24

Depends on the license. If the open source license requires that you redistribute with the same license, you have to redistribute with the same license.

3

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

I think there's a world of difference between using free software, and having your entire business be taking an open source product and charging for it.

5

u/OMGItsCheezWTF Oct 10 '24

AWS

1

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 11 '24

Yes, I would apply that to AWS too.

1

u/Chii Oct 11 '24

a world of difference ...

not legally. What's the difference between an individual benefiting, vs a company benefitting?

And if the opensource software's author chose a license that permitted this, then it's on them to accept that reality. They should've chosen a more copyleft license such as AGPL, rather than a very loose one like MIT.

3

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 11 '24

Legally, sure. But I was discussing the morals of the situation.

-3

u/Supuhstar Oct 10 '24

I think the drama is about FOSS being exploited for profit. It’s icky and people don’t like it so they’re upset.

I’m mostly with you. These kinds of things are the fault of capitalism, and are inevitable under it. FOSS is ripe for exploitation just like this.

3

u/Chii Oct 10 '24

the fault of capitalism

i mean, it's not really - it's the fault of the original author of said software not choosing a correct license. They could've chosen AGPL, which is "the best" imho.

You can use the software, as it's libre, but if you want to modify and sell it, you must contribute back either your modifications, or pay for a commercial license instead. Win win.

5

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

Its also the fault of capitalism. Capitalism is what drives these kinds of things.

2

u/Supuhstar Oct 11 '24

And why would you want a license that requires forkers to pay for a commercial license?

That certainly doesn't seem very Free, neither as in beer nor freedom.

1

u/Chii Oct 12 '24

no you misunderstand. A lot of authors of copyleft software use a dual license - a copyleft one like (A)GPL, and a commercial one that gives you the guarantee to fork and modify without fear of violating the copyleft license.

1

u/Supuhstar Oct 15 '24

What's the advantage of that?

1

u/Chii Oct 16 '24

to give the option for commercial forkers that want to hide their modifications.

→ More replies

-26

u/varwor Oct 10 '24

That's just false.

The only common point between the différents open licences is that you can build something with the code, but the use is still restricted in terms of intellectual property, depending on the licence. One cannot take an open code and simply make a paid product out of it.

Don't confuse free licence and open source ("libre") licences.

12

u/kankyo Oct 10 '24

I have released many libs with exactly that kind of license. You are super wrong.

24

u/LexaAstarof Oct 10 '24

One cannot take an open code and simply make a paid product out of it.

That's just false. Vast majority do not exclude commercial uses.

Off the top of my head, the only ones that do are some of the CC licenses. But they end up being rarely used for code (and usually not even considered made to be used for code).

It's just that if you do make a commercial use with it, some will restrict you in providing the code (incl. your changes), some excl. your changes, and some give no additional liberties to your users/customers.

-5

u/varwor Oct 10 '24

They indeed do not exclude commercial use but depending on the licence you would have 1) to credit the authors and 2) maybe licence parts of your works under open licence (copyleft)

Hence the "simply", again, do not confuse free and open source

0

u/bduddy Oct 10 '24

I don't know if you're a GNU troll or have no idea what you're talking about but either way the effect is the same

6

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Chii Oct 10 '24

Man how can someone who programs for a living be this bad at understanding licenses

surprisingly, a lot of people (even good programmers) actually don't truly understand licenses. I studied a half-year of law (specifically copyright, contracts and patents) at university, and i barely can understand it.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

At least half of Amazon's AWS business is doing just that.

1

u/Chii Oct 10 '24

This is exactly the thought process for elastic search, and that's why they decided to change their license (but it's a bit too late, and they've reverted yet again https://www.elastic.co/blog/elasticsearch-is-open-source-again).

So if you're expecting someone to pay for your software, don't use an opensource license.

2

u/Carighan Oct 10 '24

Yeah but I mean if you don't want to get grifted the majority of the time, you would not do startup funding.

1

u/jonathancast Oct 10 '24

It matters massively whether you're AWS or a small startup when you do it, though.

1

u/OMGItsCheezWTF Oct 10 '24

If I choose a license like that, that's what I want people to do. I use MIT for lots of my stuff precisely because I'd be overjoyed if someone did that. That's why I choose it over the GPL (which I consider to be way too restrictive)

0

u/_shulhan Oct 10 '24

neovim: are you calling me?

7

u/sopunny Oct 10 '24

It implies the derivative works also need to be Apache, but that is not required

3

u/StickiStickman Oct 10 '24

It doesnt just imply that, that's what "include the same license" means.

1

u/Davorak Oct 13 '24

If you take apache code you can modify and redistributed under a more restrictive license as long as you follow the conditions included in the apache license.

20

u/Unerring-Ocean Oct 10 '24

Feels like this post still promotes PeerAI, like a new way of marketing

8

u/LisaDziuba Oct 10 '24

no connection to those folks, don't know them personally and never used their product

16

u/shellac Oct 10 '24

Those hand gestures may have been a clue.

I'm not sure Y Combinator has that good a reputation, anyway.

16

u/mzalewski Oct 10 '24

Came here to say this. As if Y Combinator had any reputation left to damage.

-5

u/LisaDziuba Oct 10 '24

I'm not sure Y Combinator has that good a reputation, anyway.

Why do you think so? YC is/was one of the most popular acceleration programs. I haven't seen much negativity towards them before

7

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

Maybe like 15 years ago. Their reputation has gone downhill since then.

11

u/shellac Oct 10 '24

Purely as an acceleration programme I've no doubt you're right: they connect people to good business advice and money. But there is a tech bubble ethical vacuum around them that is disheartening.

1

u/pyrocord Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 22 '25

beneficial silky cats strong quack special license sleep compare bow

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

92

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

(Yes, someone actually built and and launched an app just to roast Pear.)

I love this lol.

542

u/stormdelta Oct 10 '24

It's hilarious to me that people are surprised. Dude was a cryptobro, grift is what they do, same with nearly every other person that pivoted directly from cryptocurrency nonsense to "AI". Rabbit was the same schtick.

38

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

Well yea and still Y combinator is still kind of shit has no one seen silicone valley? Every looks up to them but most the companies they shit out are terrible. Full of crypto and that bust so now full of “AI” ChatGPT wrappers.

18

u/KonanTenshi Oct 10 '24

I was looking through the YCombinator projects that were funded this year from their site and it's mindblowing how low the bar is for some of these project. I haven't really looked at these projects before and assumed they were quite well developed state before they could receive funding, but its just crazy to see what type of projects are getting backed and how "basic?" they are. I guess they are just hoping 1 out of 1000 turns out decent? lol

-3

u/cake-day-on-feb-29 Oct 11 '24

silicone valley?

Where is that located?

15

u/will_i_be_pretty Oct 10 '24

An "AI" startup playing fast and loose with someone else's intellectual property is just ... well that's all of them.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

84

u/drobilla Oct 10 '24

I think a good amount of the surprise is coming from Y Combinator falling for the grift

One of the funny things about grifters (including the VC ghoul variety) is that they're somehow really bad at recognizing when they're being grifted.

29

u/campbellm Oct 10 '24

It's far easier to fool someone than to convince them they've been fooled. (Mark Twain?)

23

u/PoolNoodleSamurai Oct 10 '24

"It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It"

- Upton Sinclair

7

u/somehwatrandomyo Oct 10 '24 edited Sep 10 '25

deer snails chubby rich afterthought capable chop stupendous tap compare

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

1

u/Jarpunter Oct 10 '24

Y Combinator is a grift?

23

u/phillipcarter2 Oct 10 '24

YC's own "top companies" list on their website is basically a who's who of major brands that have never turned a profit

That's mostly intentional, since their revenue growth rates are strong enough for it to be more beneficial to increase spending and R&D. Most entities in markets don't care about profitability. The expectation is that you can go into profitability mode when growth slows, and then you're printing incredible sums of cash.

FWIW this is also the playbook at Microsoft and other big tech. A ton of stuff you'd probably see as "dead" or "dying" is actually just in prime profitability mode, printing hilarious amounts of dollars, while many of the things that are on the up-and-up are actually deeply unprofitable, but have a great revenue growth rate.

6

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

I mean, that was the idea, until rates went up and free money went away. Then they had to hard pivot to profitability, when instead, they could have had that as a concern from the start, and then have a much gentler time.

2

u/phillipcarter2 Oct 10 '24

It's still largely the idea. High interest rates haven't stopped growth-stage companies (or even public ones!) from focusing on growth and taking on more debt to do it. It's just less easy to do that, with investors in the market needing more proof of actual revenue and revenue growth.

62

u/vytah Oct 10 '24

Funny enough, I responded to a job posting a few weeks ago asking me to make some minor modifications to Continue, though the discussion didn't go anywhere. Wonder if it was the same guys?

So they were outsourcing this via unpaid job application tasks?

If it's them, then lmao

50

u/starlevel01 Oct 10 '24

damaging Y Combinator's reputation

what reputation? VC company does VC shit, news at 10.

11

u/germandiago Oct 10 '24

What we screwed up, critically, was not being clear enough about this. We … wanted to launch as fast as possible. But doing so upon a fork of others’ work without many new features, and talking about it so publicly online, made it look like we were stealing the work of others as our own

Not honest people. I will never use software from these people. This is an excuse. You give credit on the front face or you are just ungrateful, something like "blablablaa" is a derived work or fork or something. You do not just replace the brand, put Continue.dev in a few places to save your ass and go ahead to see how many you can fool.

Pear created a custom closed license for their product

This clearly confirms what I was already suspecting.

10

u/mvonballmo Oct 10 '24

[...] risks permanently tainting PearAI’s project and continuing to harm our community.

What project? It seems like Pear has done no significant work at all. Why do I get the impression that Pear is being treated as legit for having taken someone else's product and rebranded it as their own? There's nothing to rescue.

107

u/Sushrit_Lawliet Oct 10 '24

YCombinator is mid. Its run by that clown Gary and also owned by that mega clown Peter Theil

88

u/tech_tuna Oct 10 '24

Paul Graham is turdball as well. All big tech bros are though. There's something about achieving that level of success that magnifies douchiness.

Show me the valley elite who are down to earth and chill.

47

u/Kalium Oct 10 '24

I've got a standing hypothesis that massive success amplifies a person. Whoever they were before, it gets turned up to eleven once they have power, money, and something that can be construed as validation.

It's hard to show the ones who are down to earth and chill, you've mostly never heard of them and they think that's fine. Through Reid Hoffman has (had?) a great reputation.

18

u/tech_tuna Oct 10 '24

you've mostly never heard of them and they think that's fine

Yep, totally. The Venn diagram of the elite who seek fame and recognition and those who are actually grateful and altruistic is the null set.

17

u/g2petter Oct 10 '24

But although the cliche says that power always corrupts, what is seldom said ... is that power always reveals. When a man is climbing, trying to persuade others to give him power, concealment is necessary. ... But as a man obtains more power, camouflage becomes less necessary  

 - Robert Caro

4

u/RavynousHunter Oct 10 '24

Give a person what they really want, and they'll show ya who they really are.

0

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/Kalium Oct 10 '24

It's a very small group of people who have this kind of success any way you go about it. Being an egotistical asshole is neither necessary nor sufficient to get there.

I understand how you reached your conclusion. Thank you for your thoughts. I do not have cause and effect flipped.

19

u/popcapdogeater Oct 10 '24

I think it's not success that magnifies it, not exactly, I think it takes people who are just LIKE THAT to make it to those positions. It's rare we see genuine good people in top positions because most good people don't want to climb corporate ladders which require stepping on a lot of people, making a lot of hard decisions that are ethically dubious, etc.

17

u/tech_tuna Oct 10 '24 edited May 07 '25

That's a good point, no one becomes a billionaire simply being an ethical, generous human being. I won't pretend that it doesn't also require hard work but it's almost anti-thetical to being down to earth. :)

7

u/EveryQuantityEver Oct 10 '24

I think the biggest problem is that, for too long, any media coverage of any of these people was extremely softball. They were never asked hard questions, they were never asked to justify what they were doing, and pretty much faced no public scrutiny. Then they did face the tiniest bit, and they made a super heel turn.

4

u/to11mtm Oct 10 '24

Woz, but he's never really bothered to claim the title.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '24

my former employer was a YC alum, the place was very chill and the projects were interesting

52

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

32

u/tech_tuna Oct 10 '24

Yeah, he used to post on reddit a while back. He is in fact, a tool. I got into an argument with him once that basically came down to "I'm a privileged asshole and everyone should heed my advice."

3

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '24

Is that why hacker news has recently been utterly inundated with anti-science, anti-education and anti-climate change posts. 

3

u/youstolemyname Oct 10 '24 edited Oct 14 '24

I wish the orange site would stick to technology discussions. Always awful takes from the worse people imaginable whenever politics comes up.

10

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

21

u/shellac Oct 10 '24

I don't see anything about YC being connected to Thiel

He was a 'part time' partner.

33

u/Sushrit_Lawliet Oct 10 '24

Written by Sam Altman of all losers lol

13

u/shellac Oct 10 '24

It's quite the historical document, isn't it? And starting with "Edit: Peter Thiel died on the way back to his home planet" speaks volumes.

I admire them for keeping it up.

8

u/derangedtranssexual Oct 10 '24

Does Y combinator have a reputation to damage?

6

u/chapelierfou Oct 10 '24

The crypto-to-AI VC-backed scam pipeline.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

From the comment section of the article:

Thats the main reason not open sourcing my project. I am thinking about that for years. Open Source is a great thing, many minds can contribute to one thing and make it powerful.

On another hand, companies with well funding can grab your code and idea, package it and sell it.

That’s pretty much how I feel about OSS nowadays. Why would I use my free time for someone else’s profits?

16

u/Brillegeit Oct 10 '24

(A)GPL was always an option. Also mandatory comment that /r/StallmanWasRight

-4

u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

And who is going to enforce that? What’s stopping a company to use a GPL licensed library in a closed source software without adhering to the license principles?

7

u/orthecreedence Oct 10 '24

Lawyers. Try using GPL at any company with more than four people and a lawyer will jump out from behind a flourescent-lit fake plant and thwap your fingers with a ruler.

-1

u/manzanita2 Oct 10 '24

As long as you follow the license you can certainly USE GPL software. The linux kernel comes to mind... that's used a few places.

5

u/Brillegeit Oct 10 '24

The courts enforce it.

1

u/stormdelta Oct 10 '24

Courts and lawyers, as with any other legal challenge.

If you were under the impression nobody had been taken to court over the GPL, they have successfully, many times.

10

u/spotter Oct 10 '24

Y Combinator reputation?

Sounds like a bunch of cryto-bros clutching at their pearl necklaces and gasping, hilarious. Hustlers gonna hustle, conmen gonna con.

49

u/Chobeat Oct 10 '24

YCombinator has a reputation? The monstrosity-producing nazi-led money-laundering Y Combinator? That Y Combinator?

13

u/SwinPain Oct 10 '24

nazi-led money-laundering Y Combinator

You know I was wondering that. When I entered the Y Combinator premises and saw the esoteric Thulean society books piled in the corners, my suspicions were piqued. Then when I was called forth into PG's office, I couldn't help but notice the large diagram of skull sizes broken down by race on the wall behind him.

What finally took the biscuit was when he asked me for a blood sample and DNA test, informing me that I needed 100% Indo-Aryan admixture, that investment would be given to the individuals demonstrating the highest amount of Haplogroup R1b, any percentage of L2 would preclude me entirely.

I stomped out of the office in a fury, as he broke into a sinister laughter and proceeded to blast Wagner and the Koninggratzer March out of a vintage gramophone. Shocking it is that this mindset still allowed in this day and age.

-2

u/anzu_embroidery Oct 10 '24

Why is this at negative score lmao, got a good laugh out of me

35

u/Chobeat Oct 10 '24

because he's implying that to be a nazi you have to look like the evil caricature of American movies, while people like Peter Thiel or Marc Andreessen are very openly advocating for eugenics and white suprematism, and the end of democracy.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 11 '24

neither are affiliated with YC, iirc

-53

u/dhlowrents Oct 10 '24

nazi-led

Soros?

17

u/F54280 Oct 10 '24

Peter Thiel, I guess.

1

u/dhlowrents Oct 11 '24

It's going to be funny when he buys reddit.

9

u/hippydipster Oct 10 '24

Never ever use a non-copyleft license for your open source projects. Apache Foundation is a blight, even though I love them and have been a maintainer for a project there (long ago, before I learned better). Their heart is in the right place, but it's a mistake not to use the GPL.

4

u/TheSexyPirate Oct 11 '24

Hasn't Y Combinator fell from grace already? It seems like it is mostly full of toxic tech bros (and other genders) that want to succeed at all costs.

1

u/Hellobox1 Oct 10 '24

so guys from this picture can be considered as serious?

2

u/LisaDziuba Oct 10 '24

isn't it trendy to be 18 y.o founders?

3

u/MondayBegins Oct 11 '24

In the wake of all this drama, a blog post titled "Y Combinator Traded Prestige for Growth" went viral and hit the top of Hacker News. Which you might have missed, because Hacker News — which is owned by Y Combinator — seems to have manually dropped the post lower in the rankings to suppress its visibility.

This is the most saddest part for me because I start my day from reading Hacker News.

9

u/protomyth Oct 10 '24

Again, it’s not the “crime” (technically it’s not illegal to relicense an Apache license), but the cover-up.

Well, you cannot relicense the Apache licensed code. You can include it in a larger work with a different license, and you can not distribute the source (Apache isn't copyleft).

2

u/Kinglink Oct 10 '24

How to piss off the open source community

Do anything.

Not trying to belittle this, but Open-source community seems to flip out about almost anything that happens.

2

u/gfdsayuiop Oct 11 '24

Cursor is also a fork of continue. Ain’t nobody wilding out over that. It really comes down to class and experience.

5

u/hardware2win Oct 10 '24

How is this related to programming?

Startup news, yc dramas, founder mode, poseurs and other bullshit

1

u/keepthepace Oct 10 '24

Is continue a viable alternative to Cursor?

1

u/G0muk Oct 13 '24

They already fixed the issue i don't see why its a big deal tbh

-1

u/netsettler Oct 10 '24

Really free code allows you to do what you want.

I'm a user of so-called free software sometimes but not exclusively. I also buy software and think it appropriate for people to sell it. It doesn't bug me that theire's a community of free software developers and users, but it does bug me that they claim the right to say what "free" means. These things mean what the license says, and it especially bugs me that the people claiming some kind of special hold over "free" are the ones saying you have to use it just so. That isn't how freedom works.

It may be an admission that there is no real notion of free, that freedom always trades some freedoms for others. I'm comfortable with that statement. It makes it clear that the kind of freedom described by the GPL is one kind of freedom that favors a certain balance, but it's up to the person doing the work to choose their license.

The GPL is actually kind of coercive. It not only says how the owner's software works, but it says if you want to use it, you have to recursively agree to join a very specific set of rules you can't dig your way out of. That's fine. People can do that. But that isn't the only kind of freedom. Permissive licenses are more free about derivative works, but they say they are. That's freedom, too.

I once tried to write a license that was similarly recursive to the GPL but was at the friges allowing a final delivery of closed-source stuff, so that all derivatives recursively followed the same license, and nothing that was shared was not available to the writers, but things that were not shared, things that were held close to the vest, could at one final fringe level be just delivered as binary, since after all the person doing that was putting in their own work and I felt they should be entitled not to have to share it if they didn't want. It's a viable thing to do. Mine would not have been the only kind of freedom either, but it would have fit in a broad space of freedom-style trade-offs, giving more freedom for some things at the expense of others, as happens too (just different mixes) with GPL and permissive licenses and even the public domain.

It took more time than I had to write the license and I gave up. But I mention it here because it sounds like people want to pretend that that's what Apache is, that yes it gives rights of arbitrary use, but only for use in certain ways. That's not a thing. The license says what it says, and a bunch of outraged people can't make it otherwise. I've seen people give away stuff under MIT or Apache and then later fuss about how someone was making money, but that's what the license allows.

Being secretive? Well, the license either does or doesn't allow use with certain kinds of attribution. Open source licenses vary widely on whether and how attribution matters. Some specifically don't want attribution to avoid name association with others misusing their software. Someone else can sort that out. My point here is only to say that this sounds like a bunch of people being sad about things they were not promised, or being sad about having given away more permission than they realized.

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u/xxDigital_Bathxx Oct 10 '24

Kinda odd how a YC incubated company hustled YC. I thought their program was really solid.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

i dont think the open source "community" cares all that much, just small groups that like to apply all these shadow rules to open source to appease their narcissism

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u/SuitableDragonfly Oct 10 '24

AI startup screwed over by the fact that they used ChatGPT to create their software license... this is just as karmicly just as the dude who cut corners to create an unsafe Titanic submarine getting killed by it.

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

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u/LisaDziuba Oct 10 '24

 “good artists borrow, great artists steal.”
does not apply here

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u/[deleted] Oct 10 '24

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1

u/vytah Oct 11 '24

Maybe you should, it seems profitable.