Previously LGPL, now re-licensed as closed-source/commercial. Previous code taken down.
Commercial users pay $99/year, free for personal use but each user has to make a free account after a trial period.
Booo
Although rug-pulls like this are dubious to say the least, neither should FOSS contributors be hauled over the coals simply because, to justify continuing to commit more and more time to a project. they need to generate some kind of revenue. If more FOSS advocates donated reasonable amounts of money to the projects they use, this kind of bollocks would be much less frequent, and the long term stability of projects would increase dramatically. Sadly, way to many people donate nothing. And way too many companies, as well.
This is so sad. I’m especially bothered about the force push to change history. This was a great library. Now I guess it’s time to either use the fork or find something else.
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.
I hear mojo a callin
The amount of people who feel like they’re entitled to the previous code and are calling the license change scummy make me sick.
This developer put their own free time into this project, they made sure to not accept anyone else’s code, and they understandably felt they deserve to be paid for their time. Whether this was a smart move is another matter entirely.
The one case where I can understand being upset is if you donated shortly before this happened. 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.
Do you know if there were any other contributors to the project? I’ve always held the view that the tail of contributors should prevent relicensing under incompatible terms.
It’s a shame you are being downvoted, although I don’t (mostly) agree with you, I feel your opinion contributes positively to the discussion.
I wonder if you typed that with a straight face. If so then you are wildly out of touch with how FOSS and the democratization of FOSS development works.
You use words like “entitled” as a derogatory term when you clearly don’t understand that yes, the community is entitled because that’s how these FOSS licenses work. And people have every right to be upset when the status quo changes for a project they have also helped develop and helped get popular.
So either you are trolling, or you are clueless. Either way you should be ignored and this is as much time I’m going to waste writing this comment.
What exactly did the FOSS community lose right there?
They can still use the versions that were licensed to them. The forks are right there.
However, you are not entitled to the dev distributing those versions for you.
Actually the LGPL legally binds the dev to distributing those versions. So you’re just a troll. I am done replying to you but it has been fun watching you try to justify shit in the name of compensation.
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?
they licensed it as LGPL just to get their product popular and then said “I got the eyeballs I wanted, time to milk this!”
Show us where the dev said exactly that.
we are entitled to our ideology around FLOSS.
You are not entitled to anything. The dev simply released their work with a license that allows others to use it freely. Nothing more, nothing less.
So they just wanted people to test their product and market them for free?
Again, show us where they vocalized exactly that.
What about the compensation for people who beta-tested this product for free and recommended them to others?
What compensation were they expecting?
That just means they were looking for free marketing and eyeballs.
So far you’ve done nothing but put a whole bunch of malicious words into this developer’s mouth.
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.
The previous code exists under an irrevocable open source license, so they are entitled to it. Also, fuck off.
Is the license revoked because the dev deleted the previous code on their side?
Of course it isn’t. At least have your points make sense if you’re gonna behave like an ass.
The previous code was released under lgpl so…. Yeah if you can find a copy of it you are entitled to it. That was the developer’s choice.
Taking all the old code down with a force push to GitHub suddenly is a bit futile since obviously there are ways to get the old source.
I’m not against developers getting paid, but there’s definitely a ‘rug-pulling’ aspect to this situation that leaves a bad taste.
I wanted to elaborate, but then decided that a simple fuck off is much more appropriate and gets to the gist of the content, you know?
