Sure, the Apache 2.0 allows this, but the mistake is that when someone asked "is this based on SimStudio?" the answer was "we built it ourselves" instead of "yes, it's a fork, here's what we added." It went from a fixable attribution oversight to a credibility problem. You can retroactively add a LICENSE file, but can't take the lie back.
Both are indictment of today's ambient startup culture, and I'm not sure which is ultimately worse.
The project in question is here:
> DeepDelver recognized that Pathways looked a lot like Sim.ai’s open source agent-building product called SimStudio and asked Delve if it was based on SimStudio. The Delve folks said they built it themselves, the whistleblower contends.
If they were upfront about that it was a fork, and attributed it, sounds like there wouldn't have been any issues here at all.
Edit: Yeah they do. There's no excuse for goofing this up.
That's a hell of a caveat though. That is basically the entire license.
Its like saying you are allowed to kill people minus that whole law about murder. Well like obviously. You are allowed to do anything minus the rules that forbid you from doing the thing.
"We didn't understand the licensing!" isnt usually an incredible claim, but it becomes so when it's being made by a company that manages software licensing compliance.
Generally speaking, open source ecosystem knowledge is not something that shows up in job descriptions, interviews, or regular training for non-technical staff in most software companies. Hopefully that will one day be the case but until then there is a high likelihood that misleading statements can be made accidentally.
Every company of non-trivial sizes will eventually hire someone who is a bad hire.
That's a bit like a shoplifter saying "well, outside of not paying for it, I don't see a problem?".
Apache 2.0 clearly says you must include the license, include copyright, state any changes you've made and include the NOTICE file. None of that was done, so this is a pretty clear violation of the license. The copyright holders can demand that this is fixed immediately, seek at least an injunction if that does not happen, and maybe even claim profits made from selling the software while violating the license.
They used it without having a license. The apache license would have allowed them to use it, but they didn’t meet the conditions.
This sounds equivalent to using paid software without paying to me.
The original author could well claim that “the cost of a license under the terms which they used it is $2M”. After all, the cost of software licenses is entirely arbitrary and set by the author (copyright owner).
The fact that we can't comprehend even talking about anything beyond legality sometimes is just mind-boggling. We are sick.
Seeing some people’s post about prediction (gambling) markets is another eye opener on this topic.
Also the latest elected government of US is another one.
Not sure if it was always like this or I grew up. But it for sure seems like there is a collapse.
The internet removed consequences. You can say the most vile thing imaginable to another human being and… nothing happens. No social cost, no awkward eye contact at the grocery store, no reputation hit in your actual community. Just a dopamine hit and a notification count.
Cars did something sneakier. We spend hours every week sealed in a metal box, alone or with the same people. No random encounters, no friction with people who think differently. Just you, your podcast, and whatever is important in your tiny echo chamber.
Put those two together and you get people with deeply held morals and zero framework for applying them to anyone outside their bubble. Ethics requires seeing strangers as real. We've engineered that out of daily life.
Shouldn't morality be the basis for all of the laws?
This phrase in the article in particular is frustrating:
DeepDelver calls this “stealing intellectual property,” which is a bit of a stretch, since open source tools are freely available to be used, if they are properly credited.
Oh because my license terms are more liberal, it doesn't matter as much when you break them?? Really? Bonkers that they would publish that.
Would think twice about linking that one in polite company.
The term "glowy" has taken on a life of its own despite the original context. The image itself is from it's 4chan days. Probably poor taste to include a version with Terry's full quote.
But I can certainly squint at other people when they spread Terry's quotes and memes.
Someone can use language you disagree with but still have a point if you dig past it. I also happen to personally think it's important to engage with this sort of thinker at least sometimes
Insisting on polite, formal language can be a type of bigotry too you know. It's historically pretty classist, and lately also indicates a sort of neuronormative bigotry.
Idk, some food for thought
No it's not, it's enforcing the norms of civil discourse. If they have some kind of actual underlying issue that causes this and it's legit beyond their control - then sure, go the extra mile and try to meet them where they are.
If on the other hand, it's some annoying person who likes ruffling feathers on purpose - I really think they ought to be ostracized for such behaviour.
Short of something like the recent event with the chap with Tourette's saying awful things at the BAFTA awards, or Terry Davis with schizophrenia saying outlandish stuff, there aren't many scenarios where I'd be willing to give someone a pass on this.
If you have the ability to choose not to use the n-word, and you're not in a group that can use it self-referentially among your peers, and you use it anyway, then you're an asshole and I don't really care to hear what else you have to say. I feel pretty OK with that blanket assessment.
"There are some scenarios where you might want to give people a pass for reasons outside their control" is literally the only point I was trying to make
So I guess we are in violent agreement?
Edit: also, you will never actually discover which people you should give the benefit of the doubt if you categorically dismiss anyone who uses language you dislike
No. There's a huge, eye-wateringly vast gap between impolite, informal language and racial slurs. I happen to personally think it's completely unimportant to engage with someone actively calling someone else the n-word.
That's not classist, and in no way neuronormative bigotry, unless we're classifying racism and generalized bastardry as a mental illness.
The whole thing reeks of 14 year old turned 38 year old smelly edgelord nonsense, not something I would post, that's for sure.
My default is almost always MIT though.
It doesn't even really need to be India, it could just as well be stolen by someone in your country. The vast majority of open source developers don't have the time to invest into copyright protection. Trying to actually enforce your license is signing up for a years-long nightmare of wasting your time, energy, and money dealing with the legal system for, in the end, no real value to yourself. If you release something as open source, you pretty much need to be ready to accept that your license is meaningless when it meets contact with reality.
This is all the more true with LLMs existing now, which are freely used to launder copyright licenses. Maybe in the past GPL would've made Microsoft or Google, at least, think twice about using your code, but now their developers will prompt GPT to reimplement your code.
It also seems divorced from the practice of intentional cuckoldry. Any "bulls" would know that a more apt analogue would put Amazon and Delve and others as the cucks (expending energy to create arrangements where they can sit back and watch others do the work), and the open source contributors as the 'bulls' or 'cuckqueans' (the ones who actually do the work, but they do it because they find it enjoyable).
Luckily, software licenses aren't really so difficult to understand, and it behooves us to understand them in specifics. So I don't think it serves an illustrative purpose to insist on an analogy where writing software is like being physically intimate with someone elses spouse. I think the author just intends to signal political affiliation through the soft-shibboleth of Being the Type of Guy to Say Cuck A Lot.
It's a /g/ meme, from where luke presumably got it.
You can in-fact file a copyright claim against them if they fail to provide the source and attribution.
It would make more sense that the people who actually built the thing would do the thing better and do it first.
Without proper punishment, groups who "play fair" are at a strict disadvantage against those willing to break the rules.
At least in the US, we seem to be rapidly moving away from punishing groups for breaking the rules. All the mega successful companies (and people) seem to break a lot of rules to get there.
Conversely, the honest "play by the rules" groups can't be mega successful. Without punishment, the cheater always wins.
And now that right-wing groups are buying up all the media, we wont be hearing about it for much longer.
Steve Wozniak alone could've maybe built Apple without Steve Jobs, but his time would be wasted by doing something he (presumably) didn't enjoy very much and it would've been a much bumpier road.
The coding agents succeeds because apart from wanna be SaaS indie vibe coders, other serious users of AI agents for coding are themselves pretty strong and competent software engineers that won't let slip things easily and have years of experience and a taste in what is architecturally correct and what is nonsense and when and how to steer in what direction.
Other fields - if they have to review every output of the LLM such as in finance running totals and such to verify the results of an LLM makes their usage not as much useful.
As-is, it's so far off it's useless. Even though both situations involve copyright in some manner.
Your example only makes sense if the company stole the code from a proprietary repo, like a hostile former employee.
its Bunch of inexperienced people (kids really) stealing stuff from each other. (Not a proper 'Compliance' company) -The CEO is like 22 years old!!! WTF guys you think this guy knows compliance??? lol
Ie in a fast high pressure environment called Y Combinator where the 'adults' are pressuring and hyping each other's products and stealing open source, AI generating and in general trying to productize every crappy idea they can think of to capture some VC or investor who is too dumb to do proper due diligence in the AI gold-rush and hype train
On top of that engineering is so high pressured and awful these days e.g this video from the kids in silicon valley: https://youtu.be/0tLEszJs7hc?si=OXrJqPg-5PhVGnYT