On marak
Disclaimer: I don’t like volunteers’ work getting stolen by billion dollar corps either.
Yeah agreed. If you want to depend on some code maintained by some dude who’s > not working for you, you should be prepared for it to be possibly gone someday.
While this is technically true, it alters the spirit of OSS dramatically.
Currently OSS exists because of the spirit of developers who are curious, helpful, creative, and working for the love of the craft and helping others.
Beginner developers see this and it inspires them to invest their energy (collaborate, fix bugs, share their software) in that same spirit. It happens seamlessly and beautifully. We teach by example.
If we tell those beginner developers “If you want to depend on some code maintained by some dude who’s not working for you, you should be prepared for it to be possibly gone someday”, and the example they see is one dev screwing over millions of users because of his personal goals, do you think they’d be inspired?
Yes, he’s legally allowed. Yes, you’re technically right. But we are on the verge of losing something beautiful for lack of understanding the spirit that makes it possible.