Comment by hirako2000
11 days ago
When your product entered mainstream with integration that would yield millions when virtually obliged to get a license is typically what happens.
When backed by a company there is an ethical obligation to keep, at least maintenance. Of course legally they can do what they wish. It isn't unfair to call it bad practice.
There's no way that maintaining something is an ethical obligation, regardless of popularity. There is only legal obligation, for commercial products.
If offering a tie in thing supposedly free of charge without warning that would end once it serves a party less profit purpose then yes.
Ethics are not obligations, they are moral principles. Not having principles doesn't send you to prison that is why it isn't law. It makes you lose moral credit though.
That is ridiculous. If you buy a sandwich for a homeless person, you do not need to warn them that you won't give them another one tomorrow. If you think generosity is an obligation of slavery, you have your morals backwards.
However, almost every open source license actually DOES warn that support may end. See the warranty clause.
https://github.com/minio/minio/blob/master/LICENSE#L587
3 replies →
> If offering a tie in thing supposedly free of charge without warning that would end once it serves a party less profit purpose then yes
Claiming that you’re entitled to free R&D forever because someone once gave you something of value seems like a great way to ensure that nobody does that again. You got over a decade of development by a skilled team, it’s not exactly beyond the pale that the business climate has changed since then.
Those might be your moral principles, but others reject this nonsense of an obligation to perpetual free labor you think you're entitled to, and don't grant you this moral high ground you assume you have.
There is no ethical obligation. You just want them to release new work under open source licence.
They already had. And for what purpose you think?
That's your first mistake. Thinking any company truly gives a shit about ethics when it negatively impacts what it is they actually want to do.
> When backed by a company there is an ethical obligation to keep, at least maintenance.
You're saying that a commercial company has an ethical obligation to do work for you in future, for free? That doesn't follow from any workable ethical system.