I'm just kinda curious about some comments on Twitter and here. Ok, the guy made an open source library, with no strings attached, a big company used it for god knows what and acknowledged him. Why would the company give him anything more than acknowledgement? As far as we know they didn't demand any updates or support from him, why are they expected to give him freebies, contribute to the code or anything else?
The company is giving him something, which is a huge vote of approval to his library. "You ship it, you own it" means Nintendo just said, "This guys code is Nintendo-handheld quality code!" Big endorsement. And literally no-one in the world knows more about that code than him.
Last but not least is just the feeling that your code is running in so many places! What a feeling of accomplishment. Over a career, you start to think more and more about what code you have running in the world. Where it used to run. Where you'd like it to run.
That's a pretty satisfying feeling, and it also makes him one of the few bona fide people in the world at whom you can throw money to fix (or change) the library.
Some people don't understand what they're doing when they release open-source code with a permissive license. This results in expecting more than what the chosen license demands.
It cuts both ways; some users expect more support than promised.
If you look at the library (and many of his other 100+), then the code itself is so simple that it barely counts as a library. It's 60 lines where the only logic is to type-check for a string or a number.
Chances are it's just found itself as a dependency of a dependency, rather than being used directly. Not to shit on either of them, but they both 'maintain' a large amount of trivial packages that any language with a sensible standard library wouldn't require.
>why are they expected to give him freebies, contribute to the code or anything else?
Because it would be cool, and some good press that very few people would read.
After the tweet likely started to trend you see the start of the eternal GPL vs MIT/BSD debate, but the first couple just seemed pretty like they thought it would be neat if he got a Switch.
The conversation exists because this guy in particular has talked and implemented various (in my opinion hostile) methods for commercialising open-source work.
>Why would the company give him anything more than acknowledgement?
Because there is a level above "doing the absolute minimum necessary" that is a nice-to-have, but not at all mandatory nor expected.
It seems like everyone is purposefully going out of their way to not understand that throwing him a freebee that's cheap compared to the cost of engineering time (e.g. a nintendo switch) would be a pleasant thing to do and a way to buy goodwill.
> "Why would the company give him anything more than acknowledgement?" [...] why are they expected to give him freebies, contribute to the code or anything else?
I disagree that it's "expected" that the company gives him anything, there's generally no expectation like that in OSS. BUT it'd be super-cool if they did give him a Switch!
>I'm just kinda curious about some comments on Twitter and here.
My opinion is that if we knew, fully understand and answered your questions we would have nearly ended all the past, current and future political debate.
Some people just always wanted more, especially those who are making more profits.
The licence doesn't require giving anything back, but when you're a massive for-profit corporation, it would be easy to do something nice to the people whose work you're using for free.
To be fair, that wasn't the author's viewpoint - just random people on twitter. You can find a lot of insane ramblings in responses on twitter.
For everyone that thinks he should get a switch for his work - I wonder if they also think that the author should, say, lend out his switch to open source authors for a week or two for using the open source software that he almost certainly used in order to build his library which was included in the Switch.
I guess it's mostly about acknowledging his free contribution to their own work. Being thankful and such. Though, it's questionable how much value his work really have for them and whether the company is actually aware of it. Likely the devs at nintendo decide such things on their own and non of the manager who decide on gifting stuff even know about this.
The company is following the license, as they should for any other. I'm glad to see this (and/but will note in my experience Nintendo is an above board company).
Put me in the camp of those that feel that there is no need for any special compensation from Nintendo. Attribution and recognition is more than enough. Isn't it exactly the reason for releasing the software under this license?
People who release free software are generally people who enjoy programming. A programmer with a proven track record of releasing high quality free software should have no problem securing a high paying job. If this guy happened to be looking for one this public attribution from Nintendo is surely something that can help level up a CV.
I was expecting a rant, but finally somebody is happy that a company is using his code :)
It used to be a huge honor for a program you wrote to end up in a computer magazine for millions of people to type in for free. I was published twice in the mid-80's and only got a copy of the magazines, but that was enough.
Back then, it was also common for the magazine to publish your home address and sometimes phone number so people could get in touch with you with questions.
Programming is no longer a community. It's a competition.
It must be the first time I see a developer licensing his code under the MIT or BSD and then being happy when he sees his code being used by someone else.
Yeah good job whoever submitted this - the headline makes you think Nintendo is ripping off code. "No! Not Nintendo!" And then you click and it's just one of hundreds of open-source authors who's code is used by the Nintendo Switch. Not to disparage the guy's accomplishment in getting that far though!!
Well, the dude specifically chose MIT license. People who choose MIT licensing are generally comfortable with people taking their work and incorporating it without recompense.
It's a deliberate choice. I'm not surprised that his response is more mind-blowing shock rather than anger.
I was happy when I found out that my code was used in products by large companies like Disney and Hasselblad, but yet also ashamed because it was the cause of some of their product vulnerabilities and painted their product in a bad light:
I mean, that's clearly their fault and not yours. The license could not possibly be more clear:
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY
THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
They essentially picked up a print out of some source code they found laying on the ground in a park with a sticky note on top saying "DO NOT USE" and then threw it into their security-focused product for shits and giggles.
So, I'm seeing a lot of dislike for the GPL in these threads.
Just curious, as a side question... suppose one really does believe that users should be able to improve and modify the software on devices they own and share those improvements with others; is there a better license out there?
(The current situation reminds me a lot of a Prisoner's Dilemma problem -- if the open-source community typically used the GPL, there'd be significant economic pressure on companies to work with GPL'd software, but in our current world, the individual developer has to choose between giving their code away as non-GPL open-source or toiling in complete obscurity, and it's no surprise that individuals choose to at least get the cred of seeing their code used.)
The AGPL goes further than GPL in the requirement of providing source code, so in a way its more GPL than GPL itself and thus maybe "better".
On the prisoner's dilemma – I see two major dimensions in BSD/MIT vs GPL:
* Should a license enforce the giving back of code or should one be free to do so out of ones own will? Which is the most "free"? Enforced freedom or freedom to be free? (Which one is best really depends on how one defines and values "free")
* Does a long and complex license like the GPL help a project or is the simplicity and shortness of BSD/MIT better?
(Then there's the third type of license which is Apache, which is basically as open as BSD/MIT, but still as long and complex as GPL, to cover eg. patents in addition to intellectual property)
It depends on how you feel about the word "should."
At core, there are two different philosophies at play here.
On one side, you see copyleft licenses. These licenses impose a requirement on anyone who uses/modifies the source code. This requirement is for the purpose of ensuring that all versions of the source code are available for all potential users of the code. They do this by requiring source modifications to be licensed similarly and made available.
On the other side, you see permissive licenses, such as BSD or MIT licenses. These impose no requirement upon users/modifiers of the code, other than preserving the copyright notice on the copyrighted code. Derived works need not share a similar license, nor do modifications need to be made available.
Both categories of license allow downstream users of the code to do whatever they wish with it in that neither restricts usage of the code. Copyleft licenses include a requirement to share and share alike. This imposes additional legal burdens on some usages of the code - it doesn't prevent it outright, but it forces certain actions as a condition for certain usages of the code. Permissive open source licenses impose no such burden.
Both allow users to improve and modify the software on their devices. Neither prevents sharing those improvements with others. One requires sharing those improvements with others.
So, I'll conclude by restating my initial point: it depends on what your definition of "should" is. One interpretation of should is normative - you believe in this thing and you believe that it is well and good that requirements to act in accordance with this belief are imposed upon others. The other interpretation is that an acceptable license does not restrict such behavior, but also does not enforce it either.
No, the problem is not really a prisoner's dilemma here. Rather, there's a philosophical difference between two parts of the community. Many people don't want to do work for large companies for free, and dislike their work being used without compensation. So, they license it under copyleft licenses. Others (like me) don't really care and mostly write stuff because it's fun and interesting. We publish things under permissive licenses. Even were GPL the standard, I'd probably still use permissive licenses because I don't care where the code is used.
Sure there is. It's free if your income is less than $1000000 per year. It's $1000 per year otherwise. This is no joke, I know a company that does that.
I know very little about the npm ecosystem or how popular/ubiquitous the author's library is, but its weekly downloads on NPM seem very high? https://www.npmjs.com/package/safe-buffer
safe-buffer is currently at 45M weekly downloads with 1.3K dependents. By comparison, the 4 most depended on libaries have a much lower ratio of downloads to dependents:
I'm assuming safe-buffer has its ratio because c̶o̶r̶e̶ highly popular libraries already depend on it (and those c̶o̶r̶e̶ libraries, not safe-buffer js, are what other libraries list as dependencies). Because Switch system updates wouldn't be downloading from npm, right?
edit: I was using "core" to refer to extremely popular/depended-on libraries – e.g. mysql/mongo/requests depending on safe-buffer – but that's obviously not the right usage in this context.
Someone more passionate about open source usage could put up a brag site where products using open source and profiles of the authors of the open source are tracked. It would be of some benefit to the authors.
When I was a teenager there was a MegaTouch game at a bowling alley. I watched the thing boot up, the text on the screen looked familiar
Setting hostname localhost [ OK ]
Lo and behold it was running Linux! I was intrigued to say the least. I also saw that in the about menus, there was information about the GPL and it also mentioned using the Allegro graphics library that I was familiar with, from DJGPP (hey, this was the 90's).
Was anyone else expecting this to be about emulators, given
the whole debacle happening right now around The Big House?
Specifically, any of the several different times that Nintendo has been caught lifting open-source ones for their own products, despite their constant arguments that using them yourself, to play games that they (or various retail partners) sold to you, is somehow piracy.
(Obligatory #FreeMelee)
EDIT: on a second look, as I went digging for sources for this, I may be mixing up details between Sony (who did this exact thing with the PS1 Classic) and Nintendo (who shipped ROMs downloaded from pirate sites at least once in the last couple of years).
That being said, it doesn't change why this is so problematic in the first place. The double standards involved make it worse, but the only reason it's a problem to begin with is that instead of letting you meaningfully preserve content game and movie studios (here in the US at least), movie and game studios instead can opt to keep repeatedly dipping into our collective wallets for the same content, all because now it's wrapped in a new emulator and/or DRM scheme.
"Slippi requires illegal mods" is only an argument to begin with because, despite backups and format shifting generally being fair use, bypassing the requisite copy-protection to do these things violates the DMCA anyway, as does trafficking in anything that can even if your use is explicitly exempted (accessibility, for instance).
It's a ridiculous, visibly letter-of-the-law problem that we've had as long as the DMCA has existed (anyone remember RealDVD?), and ultimately it renders basic consumer protections as being subject to a publisher's veto.
Let's not get carried away here, it's 60-some lines of JavaScript to do some manual type checking, likely pulled in by a mess of package.json declarations. I'm kind of disappointed in Nintendo if they're running Node on the switch itself.
A bunch of open source Switch homebrew utilities (including a full kernel reimplementation) are available under a dual license: GPLv2 for everyone else and Zero-Clause BSD license for Nintendo. I'm waiting for these projects to get in :)
[+] [-] BerSerKer|5 years ago|reply
I'm just kinda curious about some comments on Twitter and here. Ok, the guy made an open source library, with no strings attached, a big company used it for god knows what and acknowledged him. Why would the company give him anything more than acknowledgement? As far as we know they didn't demand any updates or support from him, why are they expected to give him freebies, contribute to the code or anything else?
[+] [-] javajosh|5 years ago|reply
Last but not least is just the feeling that your code is running in so many places! What a feeling of accomplishment. Over a career, you start to think more and more about what code you have running in the world. Where it used to run. Where you'd like it to run.
That's a pretty satisfying feeling, and it also makes him one of the few bona fide people in the world at whom you can throw money to fix (or change) the library.
[+] [-] FartyMcFarter|5 years ago|reply
It cuts both ways; some users expect more support than promised.
[+] [-] ljm|5 years ago|reply
Mind, it's not to the same level as this guy: https://github.com/jonschlinkert
Chances are it's just found itself as a dependency of a dependency, rather than being used directly. Not to shit on either of them, but they both 'maintain' a large amount of trivial packages that any language with a sensible standard library wouldn't require.
[+] [-] boomboomsubban|5 years ago|reply
Because it would be cool, and some good press that very few people would read.
After the tweet likely started to trend you see the start of the eternal GPL vs MIT/BSD debate, but the first couple just seemed pretty like they thought it would be neat if he got a Switch.
[+] [-] moritonal|5 years ago|reply
See his "experiment" (https://github.com/feross/funding) and selling terminal ads during npm install (https://dev.to/adriansandu/npm-bans-terminal-ads-and-mozilla...)
[+] [-] finnthehuman|5 years ago|reply
Because there is a level above "doing the absolute minimum necessary" that is a nice-to-have, but not at all mandatory nor expected.
It seems like everyone is purposefully going out of their way to not understand that throwing him a freebee that's cheap compared to the cost of engineering time (e.g. a nintendo switch) would be a pleasant thing to do and a way to buy goodwill.
[+] [-] franciscop|5 years ago|reply
I disagree that it's "expected" that the company gives him anything, there's generally no expectation like that in OSS. BUT it'd be super-cool if they did give him a Switch!
[+] [-] fortran77|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hutzlibu|5 years ago|reply
Because they make big money with his work and he does not.
So sure, legally they do not owe him anything, but morally a material compensation would be adequate.
If the idea spreads of freely compensating OSS, then more OSS work could be done fulltime. Money still rules the world.
[+] [-] ksec|5 years ago|reply
My opinion is that if we knew, fully understand and answered your questions we would have nearly ended all the past, current and future political debate.
Some people just always wanted more, especially those who are making more profits.
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] oh_sigh|5 years ago|reply
For everyone that thinks he should get a switch for his work - I wonder if they also think that the author should, say, lend out his switch to open source authors for a week or two for using the open source software that he almost certainly used in order to build his library which was included in the Switch.
[+] [-] slightwinder|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumby|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] downrightmike|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bredren|5 years ago|reply
It would be great press too.
[+] [-] mobilemidget|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] krelian|5 years ago|reply
People who release free software are generally people who enjoy programming. A programmer with a proven track record of releasing high quality free software should have no problem securing a high paying job. If this guy happened to be looking for one this public attribution from Nintendo is surely something that can help level up a CV.
[+] [-] xiphias2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reaperducer|5 years ago|reply
It used to be a huge honor for a program you wrote to end up in a computer magazine for millions of people to type in for free. I was published twice in the mid-80's and only got a copy of the magazines, but that was enough.
Back then, it was also common for the magazine to publish your home address and sometimes phone number so people could get in touch with you with questions.
Programming is no longer a community. It's a competition.
[+] [-] bzb6|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richardlblair|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WesolyKubeczek|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] phendrenad2|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bena|5 years ago|reply
It's a deliberate choice. I'm not surprised that his response is more mind-blowing shock rather than anger.
[+] [-] duckson|5 years ago|reply
> Fun game at apple store: on any mac, in terminal type: "grep Copyright `gem which rake`"
... which would print his name, because Ruby and rake are bundled with macOS. :)
[+] [-] zxcvgm|5 years ago|reply
- https://www.zdnet.com/article/circle-with-disney-web-filter-...
- https://threatpost.com/popular-circle-with-disney-parental-c...
The code in question was a primitive mDNS announcement library written in C, which I licensed under the 3-clause BSD license.
[+] [-] munificent|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] earhart|5 years ago|reply
Just curious, as a side question... suppose one really does believe that users should be able to improve and modify the software on devices they own and share those improvements with others; is there a better license out there?
(The current situation reminds me a lot of a Prisoner's Dilemma problem -- if the open-source community typically used the GPL, there'd be significant economic pressure on companies to work with GPL'd software, but in our current world, the individual developer has to choose between giving their code away as non-GPL open-source or toiling in complete obscurity, and it's no surprise that individuals choose to at least get the cred of seeing their code used.)
[+] [-] VoxPelli|5 years ago|reply
On the prisoner's dilemma – I see two major dimensions in BSD/MIT vs GPL:
* Should a license enforce the giving back of code or should one be free to do so out of ones own will? Which is the most "free"? Enforced freedom or freedom to be free? (Which one is best really depends on how one defines and values "free")
* Does a long and complex license like the GPL help a project or is the simplicity and shortness of BSD/MIT better?
(Then there's the third type of license which is Apache, which is basically as open as BSD/MIT, but still as long and complex as GPL, to cover eg. patents in addition to intellectual property)
[+] [-] greggyb|5 years ago|reply
At core, there are two different philosophies at play here.
On one side, you see copyleft licenses. These licenses impose a requirement on anyone who uses/modifies the source code. This requirement is for the purpose of ensuring that all versions of the source code are available for all potential users of the code. They do this by requiring source modifications to be licensed similarly and made available.
On the other side, you see permissive licenses, such as BSD or MIT licenses. These impose no requirement upon users/modifiers of the code, other than preserving the copyright notice on the copyrighted code. Derived works need not share a similar license, nor do modifications need to be made available.
Both categories of license allow downstream users of the code to do whatever they wish with it in that neither restricts usage of the code. Copyleft licenses include a requirement to share and share alike. This imposes additional legal burdens on some usages of the code - it doesn't prevent it outright, but it forces certain actions as a condition for certain usages of the code. Permissive open source licenses impose no such burden.
Both allow users to improve and modify the software on their devices. Neither prevents sharing those improvements with others. One requires sharing those improvements with others.
So, I'll conclude by restating my initial point: it depends on what your definition of "should" is. One interpretation of should is normative - you believe in this thing and you believe that it is well and good that requirements to act in accordance with this belief are imposed upon others. The other interpretation is that an acceptable license does not restrict such behavior, but also does not enforce it either.
[+] [-] da_big_ghey|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] GoToRO|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danso|5 years ago|reply
safe-buffer is currently at 45M weekly downloads with 1.3K dependents. By comparison, the 4 most depended on libaries have a much lower ratio of downloads to dependents:
https://www.npmjs.com/browse/depended
1. lodash: 38M downloadsand 128K ependents
2. React: 9M / 64k
3. Chalk: 62M / 62K
4. Requests: 22M / 50K
5. commander: 50M / 48K
I'm assuming safe-buffer has its ratio because c̶o̶r̶e̶ highly popular libraries already depend on it (and those c̶o̶r̶e̶ libraries, not safe-buffer js, are what other libraries list as dependencies). Because Switch system updates wouldn't be downloading from npm, right?
edit: I was using "core" to refer to extremely popular/depended-on libraries – e.g. mysql/mongo/requests depending on safe-buffer – but that's obviously not the right usage in this context.
[+] [-] kozak|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dawnerd|5 years ago|reply
And isn’t this the same feross that spammed everyone’s npm begging for money?
[+] [-] zestyping|5 years ago|reply
To me it looks like a confusion about whether "okay" means "legal" or "ethical" or "cool".
It's possible for something to be legal and ethical and still not courteous or gracious, and this falls into that category.
[+] [-] CharlesMerriam2|5 years ago|reply
Someone more passionate about open source usage could put up a brag site where products using open source and profiles of the authors of the open source are tracked. It would be of some benefit to the authors.
[+] [-] bluedino|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaosharmonic|5 years ago|reply
Specifically, any of the several different times that Nintendo has been caught lifting open-source ones for their own products, despite their constant arguments that using them yourself, to play games that they (or various retail partners) sold to you, is somehow piracy.
(Obligatory #FreeMelee)
EDIT: on a second look, as I went digging for sources for this, I may be mixing up details between Sony (who did this exact thing with the PS1 Classic) and Nintendo (who shipped ROMs downloaded from pirate sites at least once in the last couple of years).
That being said, it doesn't change why this is so problematic in the first place. The double standards involved make it worse, but the only reason it's a problem to begin with is that instead of letting you meaningfully preserve content game and movie studios (here in the US at least), movie and game studios instead can opt to keep repeatedly dipping into our collective wallets for the same content, all because now it's wrapped in a new emulator and/or DRM scheme.
"Slippi requires illegal mods" is only an argument to begin with because, despite backups and format shifting generally being fair use, bypassing the requisite copy-protection to do these things violates the DMCA anyway, as does trafficking in anything that can even if your use is explicitly exempted (accessibility, for instance).
It's a ridiculous, visibly letter-of-the-law problem that we've had as long as the DMCA has existed (anyone remember RealDVD?), and ultimately it renders basic consumer protections as being subject to a publisher's veto.
[+] [-] bytematic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xyst|5 years ago|reply
Looks like one of those "utility" modules that get used in a project because there's no proper standard library for node.js
At least it's better than the infamous "left-pad" module, which was just a single function
[+] [-] ArcMex|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bschwindHN|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] deft|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zanecraw|5 years ago|reply