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> Litestream has a new home at Fly.io, but it is and always will be an open-source project. My plan for the next several years is to keep making it more useful,

by lnsp 4y ago

> Litestream has a new home at Fly.io, but it is and always will be an open-source project. My plan for the next several years is to keep making it more useful, no matter where your application runs, and see just how far we can take the SQLite model of how databases can work. As far as I understood it, Fly.io hired the person working on Litestream and pays them to keep working on Litestream.

tiffanyh 4y ago
That’s how I understood it and that’s radically different than how this HN post got titled. Ben Johnson confirms how you framed it here: https://mobile.twitter.com/benbjohnson/status/1523748988335263744?cxt=HHwWgMCsibfouKUqAAAA https://mobile.twitter.com/benbjohnson/status/15237489883352...
- tptacek 4y ago
  We wrote a different title for this blog post, and we did in fact buy Litestream (to the extent that anyone can "buy" a FOSS project, of course).
  - apgwoz 4y ago
    > (to the extent that anyone can "buy" a FOSS project, of course). Does this mean that, in addition to offering a salary / options, you provided some sort of additional one-time compensation for copyright assignment?
    - fastball 4y ago
      All the code that has already been written/published already has the FOSS license (in this case APLv2). No take-backsies. So presumably no, there was not a one-time compensation for copyright assignment.
      - apgwoz 4y ago
        > All the code that has already been written/published already has the FOSS license (in this case APLv2). No take-backsies. You do realize that this fact does not entitle you to the copyright of the work, right? It entitles you to use it, modify, redistribute, etc, with continued attribution of the copyright holders. As such, copyright re-assignment is possible for any code that Ben wrote. And, any contributions are probably a grey area of sorts since there was probably no agreement of copyright assignment when contributing as there is in some projects. Any who.
        fastball 4y ago
        So if I take code that was released with a license like the APLv2, at any point the person that wrote that code can change the license and then sue me for using the code without permission? That doesn't sound right.
        stonemetal12 4y ago
        It is my understanding that the contract with you is APLv2, and he can't one-sidedly change that. However, nothing is guarantied about the future license of the project. The rights holder could only release future versions under a proprietary license. Meaning buying rights assignment is buying the future of the project. Of course everyone forks and leaves if you get to draconian up front, so you have to slow boil that frog.
        fastball 4y ago
        Not really though right? Copyright assignment applies to the existing code, which is again already licensed as APLv2. Future versions of software could be licensed differently because there would be new contributions. However now that Ben is working for fly.io, the primary way to do this would be to say fly.io is the rightsholder for contributions Ben makes to Litestream while working for the company. This does not require selling the copyright of existing code, nor does it seem to me like that sale would be beneficial for achieving the above.

by lnsp 4y ago

tiffanyh 4y ago

That’s how I understood it and that’s radically different than how this HN post got titled. Ben Johnson confirms how you framed it here: https://mobile.twitter.com/benbjohnson/status/1523748988335263744?cxt=HHwWgMCsibfouKUqAAAA https://mobile.twitter.com/benbjohnson/status/15237489883352...

tptacek 4y ago
We wrote a different title for this blog post, and we did in fact buy Litestream (to the extent that anyone can "buy" a FOSS project, of course).
- apgwoz 4y ago
  > (to the extent that anyone can "buy" a FOSS project, of course). Does this mean that, in addition to offering a salary / options, you provided some sort of additional one-time compensation for copyright assignment?
  - fastball 4y ago
    All the code that has already been written/published already has the FOSS license (in this case APLv2). No take-backsies. So presumably no, there was not a one-time compensation for copyright assignment.
    - apgwoz 4y ago
      > All the code that has already been written/published already has the FOSS license (in this case APLv2). No take-backsies. You do realize that this fact does not entitle you to the copyright of the work, right? It entitles you to use it, modify, redistribute, etc, with continued attribution of the copyright holders. As such, copyright re-assignment is possible for any code that Ben wrote. And, any contributions are probably a grey area of sorts since there was probably no agreement of copyright assignment when contributing as there is in some projects. Any who.
      - fastball 4y ago
        So if I take code that was released with a license like the APLv2, at any point the person that wrote that code can change the license and then sue me for using the code without permission? That doesn't sound right.
        stonemetal12 4y ago
        It is my understanding that the contract with you is APLv2, and he can't one-sidedly change that. However, nothing is guarantied about the future license of the project. The rights holder could only release future versions under a proprietary license. Meaning buying rights assignment is buying the future of the project. Of course everyone forks and leaves if you get to draconian up front, so you have to slow boil that frog.
        fastball 4y ago
        Not really though right? Copyright assignment applies to the existing code, which is again already licensed as APLv2. Future versions of software could be licensed differently because there would be new contributions. However now that Ben is working for fly.io, the primary way to do this would be to say fly.io is the rightsholder for contributions Ben makes to Litestream while working for the company. This does not require selling the copyright of existing code, nor does it seem to me like that sale would be beneficial for achieving the above.