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by gregsadetsky2 hours ago |
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upvoteby sosodev1 hours ago|
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I find it odd how we frame fairness in regards to open source software. He licensed his software as MIT. It says anyone can you use it without owing the author anything. So how is it unfair?

To be clear, I think that open source maintainers deserve much more, but I don't understand why we rarely inspect the licenses as the source of the problem.

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upvoteby nananana91 hours ago|
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Well there's this little pesky thing in the MIT license:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

That's what he was asking for, a mention in the credits.

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upvoteby sosodev1 hours ago|
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He got his name in the credits. The question was if he is owed anything else. The contract he created says he was not. I’m simply suggesting he might need a different contract.
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upvoteby singpolyma322 minutes ago|
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Only if he wants to force something different. Which it seems he does not.
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upvoteby SiempreViernes1 hours ago|
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Since he eventually got the credit, your unfairness argument better build entirely on the damage the creator suffered by the delay of his credit.
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upvoteby LeBit1 hours ago|
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If I made 500M$ using an Open Source library and didn’t send at least 1M$ to the author, I would be an objectively bad person.
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upvoteby sosodev1 hours ago|
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That’s a fine perspective, but the whole point of law is to guarantee outcomes. The license could easily say “if you make more than $500M, you must pay me $1M”. Why is that not an acceptable solution here?
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upvoteby guyomes1 hours ago|
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An interesting approach is the dual GPL and commercial license. This is used for example by the CGAL geometry library [1]. In this case, a user of the library has the choice of either paying for the library, or open sourcing the code of their software.

[1]: https://doc.cgal.org/latest/Manual/license.html

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upvoteby CooCooCaCha1 hours ago|
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I find this whole conversation baffling. Licenses and contracts are not a replacement for being a decent person.
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upvoteby SiempreViernes1 hours ago|
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Sure, but contracts is the remedy society has developed to the problem that there are lots of indecent people around (not to mention that reasonable persons can disagree without being unreasonable).
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upvoteby singpolyma322 minutes ago|
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Only if you can afford to sue
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upvoteby gafferongames33 minutes ago|
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You can't have a good contract with bad people.
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upvoteby CooCooCaCha1 hours ago|
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Because there’s a clear mismatch between the value generated from Box2d vs the value the creator receives, and that’s common for open-source in general.

It would be common decency to donate even a small portion of that $500 million, even if the license technically doesn’t require it.

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upvoteby SiempreViernes1 hours ago|
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But if this expectation really were very common, what would be the harm of putting it in a licence?
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upvoteby CooCooCaCha1 hours ago|
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MIT is simple, open, and common which is a big benefit for indie projects, small studios, and anyone with limited legal resources.

It means there’s lots of info on the internet explaining how to use the license and they can be relatively certain they won’t accidentally fall into some legal trap or misinterpret the license. It also means there’s legal precedent around the license.

All that to say, custom licenses are actually a big issue for small players.

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upvoteby mvdtnz1 hours ago|
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You seem to be confusing what is legally/contractually required with what is fair. Fairness, in general, isn't defined by law or contracts, although some laws try to codify it.
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upvoteby Yeask27 minutes ago|
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[dead]
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upvoteby tikotus28 minutes ago|
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I don't know enough to give an answer. But I also wonder if Unity, using Box2D to empower games generating billions, paid him anything.
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upvoteby maccard1 hours ago|
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Box2d is open source. For better or for worse, Rovio are entitled to use it.
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