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guy creates very cool looking, advanced css effects library that went viral

guy puts it up on GitHub

guy writes a ranty post and pins it to top the of issues with stuff like "i'm not going to make this a module or library that can be installed, and also don't try because i've already created a seperate repo for that" ON AN OPEN SOURCE LIBRARY

dude, you already open-sourced it, people are going to use it however they want

idk, just found this to be a very weird vibe, thought i'd share. thoughts?

Comments
  • 7
    Open source ≠ FLOSS
  • 4
    Free to read does not imply free to use
  • 4
    That is an awkward and wrong way of informing the public about "all rights reserved" being the license of choice for that CSS library.
  • 2
    Are you saying some people put LICENSE file for a checkmark and expect consumers to not derive their work when LICENSE file is kept intact and is not being violated? Sounds about right. /s
  • 3
    wow, a lot of idealists here in the comments. regardless of the license field, i could fork said repo, and mangle it enough that it would be indistinguishable from the original. then whose to say i "stole" it? you can't prove it.

    I'm just saying this guy seems like he wants to have his cake and eat it too
  • 1
    Reminds me of the guy behind the faker-php library. It's a library to generate false data so it has a lot of files just full of possible data to be used, making it a rather large library.

    He abandoned the package, which isn't such a big deal honestly. A lot of people don't want to stay as maintainers forever, even on packages they themselves created.

    Buuut he didn't leave it at that.

    He made a big post on his blog where he tried justifying abandoning the package (honestly not needed) and discourage people from using it using some bro-science to conclude his heavy package was super bad because global warming.
  • 3
    @vintprox @fullstackclown you seem to have misunderstood what a license file is. You don't even need a license file, but then no one can legally use your code in a way that infringes your copyrights. No one gives a shit if some home gamer makes a website with it, but it's another thing if it gets commercial usage. Then there's actual money involved and it's worthy of a legal battle.

    I was kinda hoping that someone would write a comment from another angle. It's his own repo, why would he need to accept changes to it?
  • 2
    @electrineer And I was hoping someone could read through sarcasm (marked with "/s"). I'm not coming from the mentality that maintainer must accept anything at all.
  • 2
    @vintprox lol, I remember reading the /s but for some reason I just didn't register it. Well, I'm still feeling cognitive dissonance since we don't actually know if a license was in place and what kind.
  • 0
    Im not sure I see the problem of having public code that’s not free to use …? Many companies do that in fact, I think vscode was such an example. If in the end the library the person is doing is free to use what’s the big deal after all ?
  • 0
    @Earu

    It's not open source when code has no permissive license attached, that's the deal. "Open source" is not the same as "source-available" nor free tier. You don't get to redistribute anything nor publicize modifications to such code.

    In this particular scenario, however, the scenario is reversed: author issued FOSS license (I infer this from @fullstackclown's words) along with his code and now demands that people don't exercise their rights and permissions expressed by this same license, meaning double standards.
  • 1
    Open source is open source e.g source available im not sure why you make a difference when there isn’t any. The difference lies in licensing in which case I agree with you if that’s the case
  • 0
    @Earu

    "Im not sure I see the problem of having public code that’s not free to use …?"

    "Open source is open source e.g source available im not sure why you make a difference when there isn’t any."

    Not all source-available software qualifies as open-source one, meanwhile all open-source is exclusively source-available. Let's not make an argument of ladder vs stepladder.
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