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by DarkWiiPlayer 1618 days ago
> Nobody's on the side of the big corps here

The point is, people apply legal logic to the payment and moral logic to breaking the code.

You can either agree that this guy is an asshole but these companies totally deserved it for leeching off his work, or you can say that they're both in their right according to the license.

But the argument that "he's an asshole because these companies had no obligation to pay him" is extremely dumb and hypocritical, and that's what many people are saying.

1 comments

No, I apply legal to both. Payment is not required and breaking it intentionally to do harm is illegal. Intent matters.
Taking the disclaimer in the MIT license for example:

> THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

This makes it pretty clear: The author is NOT liable.