I think you should see something.
Like I mentioned many time before, this isn’t my first attempt at creating an aggregator. Years ago, I built something similar, and back then I drew a lot of inspiration from Postmill. This time, to avoid starting from scratch, I get some elements from my old snippets. Originally, kbin was meant to be a project just for me and a few friends, so I didn’t attribute the origin authors. That’s not an excuse, though — I should have done it right away when the project became public on git. I have a point in my roadmap called “Preparing a repository for contributors,” where I allocated a significant amount of time to educate myself about licenses, attributions, and so on. Unfortunately, everything unfolded in the wrong order.
https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/196
I think Emma is right. Since I share my small successes with you, I also want to be transparent about my failures and mistakes. I will push the proper attributions to the repository today along with some critical fixes.
To avoid reinventing the wheel, I took some code used in federation from Pixelfed as well. Essentially, there are two projects two projects will be marked. However, I have never concealed this fact:
I mean that I’m not a guy who wants to steal your code. It’s obvious that someone will take a look at the code of a project that is very similar to theirs. Sometimes, I just become terribly messy when I have to do many things at once. This lesson will definitely teach me to prioritize tasks better.
In the end, I can only promise that once everything settles down and I manage to extract a library for ActivityPub, I will revisit the Postmill repository, this time with a pull request proposal.
You should definitely check it out.
https://postmill.xyz/ - Project page
https://raddle.me/ - Postmill instance
https://pixelfed.org/ - Of course, everyone here is familiar with this one ;)
PS. the website should be running a bit faster. I will talk about it next time.
For real, the person’s name is LitigousEmma. This is one step away from a copyright troll, which imo seems to the the mortal enemy of the idea of FOSS. Did this Emma recognize all the developers of the programming languages they used, or the people who made the computer they worked on, or the pioneers of electronics in general? It’s not like Emma took quarks and atoms and turned it into an web aggregator.
In LitigousEmma’s defense, kbin did not comply with the license terms of the open source software, so there is a valid concern here. Unlike most programming languages which are often released under licenses which do not requite attribution.
However, mistakes happen. The open source community is better off if we could all just start from 0 and escalate based on response.
Honestly that’s my only issue with this. Ernest was totally rightfully called out for this, as he should have been. But Emma’s knee jerk reaction is just a real bad look. Don’t make any attempt to reach out and figure out why it’s in there. Immediately make a public post accusing him of stealing code, trying to hide that he stole it, and claim it as his own…on a FOSS project no less…
Surely there’s a step or 2 before that point…
I don’t have any issue with opening an issue in the repo, that part seems reasonable. It, by definition, is an issue with the codebase.
Right, I wasn’t saying it shouldn’t have been a public post. Just that the public post shouldn’t have immediately jumped to accusations. FOSS or not, accusing someone of stealing code and intentionally trying to obfuscate its origin to pass it off as their own is a big deal for a developer. One that can destroy your reputation
A simple “I’ve noticed snippets in here of my work that falls under a license which is not attributed at all. Could you add the proper attributions or remove it from your project?” says the same thing and doesn’t jump to any accusations that you have no idea if are true or not
Not knowing either parties at all, I’d say the best solution is to assume both meant the best and some mistakes were made. One for forgetting to give credit for code, the other for wording in their asking to fix the mistake. At the end of the day, credit is given and the code grows, both benefit. Don’t dwell on the small stuff that got there, problem is solved.
Agreed! Totally think this is a learning experience for both sides
An…earnest mistake?
I’m sorry
Some good points but a counter point to consider.
Whether it’s a photo used without permission by a big company or people using your work without attribution there does tend to be a dismissive attitude overall (not that that is the case here)
I can see how somebody could come into this situation with that as the background and just cut right to the chase.
There wasn’t a “cease and desist” (the legal equivalent of an ahem) nor a DMCA copyright takedown (harsher but less financial damaging than a copyright suit with damages)
Their tone was scolding but it was a “hey… heads up… you gotta fix this” without resorting to any of the above.
Ernest took it with the right attitude and Emma accepted it and that’s that.
Couldn’t really ask for a better outcome and Emma has every right to come out swinging harder than she did.
I can’t speak to her experience with this but personally it is sometimes better to be firm (but fair) at the outset so people don’t ignore a softer tone requiring you to escalate it.
That’s just bad for everybody all around.
Copyright is the enemy of freedom and knowledge. What if Einstein copyrighted E=MC^2? Emma didn’t create the software, they just figured out how to make it.
And instead of making it closed they made it available under open source licensing. With the only terms being attribution.
They’re not the bad guy here. Nor is Ernest. There’s no bad guys here just a mistake, a call to fix it, a fix and an acceptance of that fix.
Really Ernest showed the perfect example of “if you have to eat crow eat it while it’s young and tender”
What an interesting phrase. I’ve never heard that one before. Perfectly sums up less elegant forms of phrasing it.
We have a similar one in Nigeria. If you are going to eat a frog, eat a fat one that has eggs
He couldn’t have copyrighted E=mc^2, he’d have had to patent it. But laws of nature are excluded from patent eligibiligy in the US, and presumably most other jurisdictions.
Software code is an interesting edge case in the middle. The code itself is a creative expression, and so copyright applies. This brings benefits as well as restrictions; software code is also speech as far as many free-speech rights are concerned. The algorithms expressed by the code are subject to software patents, which is a more controversial grey area.
I agree. Firstly, a public post…and secondly…a public post bashing a fellow developer with passive aggressive quotes.
Now I may be assuming but it didn’t seem like LitigiousEmma mad an attempt to privately contact Ernest and… and assumed the worst in the post.
I’m just a reddit normie so I don’t know what happens behind the scenes but so far Ernest has been earnest and honest… as long as that is the case I’ll stand with you bud!
You made a mistake and are taking responsibility for it. I respect that!
P.S. - Notice how LitigiousEmma’s post is recent. LE just wants their name out there. If Kbin flopped then no fs would be given.
Nah I do believe that it was right to open an issue, and also that the code should’ve been credited. But it is now. Also I mean… yes? How else would you expect for them to find the code? /kbin is a project with quite a few eyes on it now. If you upload a project that nobody looks at, of course things like that go unnoticed. Doesn’t make them less wrong.
But all is well that ends well. If you do anything in the public, you gotta be prepared to deal with people who might not be the friendliest. That’s fine. I think defusing the situation like was done here and immediately fixing the problem was exactly how this kind of thing should have gone. It’s on all of us to defuse tense situations, whether we’re bringing up an issue or responding to an issue brought up by someone that might be offended. Kinda like how you should be driving defensively to avoid any accidents before they can begin to happen. I guess? Oh god I’m making too many driving analogies today I really gotta stop.
[edit]: I’m also not trying to call out the person opening the issue. There are many ways why it might have been worded like that, including past experience. People are very complex and seeing just a snippet of them like this isn’t what we should immediately base all of our judgements on.