I agree that it would be the right thing to do. Which is why you have to make the best attempt to make it the legal thing, because people looking to make money will not care about what's right. So, it makes sense to point out the disconnect when people use and promote pro-corporate licenses and then get upset when corporates follow them to the letter and provide them nothing but demands in return.
If you want a mutually beneficial community, you should contribute and distribute using a license that requires it.
"you people" means people that always mix up the legal thing with the right thing? It's tautological to say they're always doing that because that's how you defined them! Are you trying to say that you've encountered other people doing that before too and you've built up an annoyance with them?
It's not really that "absolute". Laws are not all made the same. Some start as a reflection of what society considers "right" at the time. Then the laws fall behind as society's morality reaches a tipping point. So the society pulls that part of the legal system behind it. Other laws are progressive, and they pull society's morality behind them. Some are driven by/for the majority, and some by/for the elites.
But they all reflect the morality of society to a degree, whether the democratic majority, or the powerful minority.
Mostly individuals decide what they will do, and then communities decide if they respect that or not. Doesn't exactly apply to companies tho, since they're functionally sociopaths.
Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated.
In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from anyone.
Your feelings about what constitutes "the right thing to do" are apparently different from those of the authors. You believe you know better than they themselves do how they should be treated.
They clearly would like donations, but choose not to require any payments.
Your line of reasoning seems to be along the lines of "anything not forbidden is compulsory" which is not a good place. Having the choice to donate but not being required to is good.
And yes, I think that if OpenAI is choosing to include an entire copy of LibreOffice in their product, it is definitely the right thing to do to sling them a donation. Note that the moral thing to do is not always the required thing to do, or even the legal thing to do.
More like, don't expect anything if not forced. Most people only generally pay for things if there is no other option. It's about what's moral (even then debatable as everyone has different morals) versus what's realistic to expect.
> Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated.
It does! And they wish to get donations. There's a button right at the top on the site making that clear.
> In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from anyone.
Yes, so what? It is true that they wished to not require payment. That is one of their wishes, but they have more than one wish. And if they required payment, that wouldn't be a donation anyway.
I agree that it would be the right thing to do. Which is why you have to make the best attempt to make it the legal thing, because people looking to make money will not care about what's right. So, it makes sense to point out the disconnect when people use and promote pro-corporate licenses and then get upset when corporates follow them to the letter and provide them nothing but demands in return.
If you want a mutually beneficial community, you should contribute and distribute using a license that requires it.
> I agree that it would be the right thing to do. Which is why you have to make the best attempt to make it the legal thing
Do you believe that in an ideal world, any instance of not "doing the right thing" should be illegal?
"you people" means people that always mix up the legal thing with the right thing? It's tautological to say they're always doing that because that's how you defined them! Are you trying to say that you've encountered other people doing that before too and you've built up an annoyance with them?
But laws are just encodes morality.
Absolutely not.
It was illegal to harbour escaped slaves. Or hide Jews from the Gestapo.
Laws have nothing to do with morality. Or justice.
It's not really that "absolute". Laws are not all made the same. Some start as a reflection of what society considers "right" at the time. Then the laws fall behind as society's morality reaches a tipping point. So the society pulls that part of the legal system behind it. Other laws are progressive, and they pull society's morality behind them. Some are driven by/for the majority, and some by/for the elites.
But they all reflect the morality of society to a degree, whether the democratic majority, or the powerful minority.
Yes they do, but not with a philosophical concept of morality, but merely those of the ruling class/majority.
Funny how morality so often benefits incumbents and the powerful.
Many of them are, but they're focused on big picture issues and preventing harm. Most of morality has no legal force.
That's genuinely hilarious.
Who decides what the right thing to do is? Everyone has different opinions.
Mostly individuals decide what they will do, and then communities decide if they respect that or not. Doesn't exactly apply to companies tho, since they're functionally sociopaths.
Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated.
In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from anyone.
Your feelings about what constitutes "the right thing to do" are apparently different from those of the authors. You believe you know better than they themselves do how they should be treated.
They clearly would like donations, but choose not to require any payments.
Your line of reasoning seems to be along the lines of "anything not forbidden is compulsory" which is not a good place. Having the choice to donate but not being required to is good.
And yes, I think that if OpenAI is choosing to include an entire copy of LibreOffice in their product, it is definitely the right thing to do to sling them a donation. Note that the moral thing to do is not always the required thing to do, or even the legal thing to do.
More like, don't expect anything if not forced. Most people only generally pay for things if there is no other option. It's about what's moral (even then debatable as everyone has different morals) versus what's realistic to expect.
2 replies →
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
> Surely "the right thing to do" includes some element of the authors' explicitly stated preferences about how they wish to be treated.
It does! And they wish to get donations. There's a button right at the top on the site making that clear.
> In this case, they chose -- explicitly -- to NOT require any payment or contribution from anyone.
Yes, so what? It is true that they wished to not require payment. That is one of their wishes, but they have more than one wish. And if they required payment, that wouldn't be a donation anyway.