[phillebaba]

I agree, after this happened to me I learned of a few other situations where the same thing happened to other friends.

On my end if was a mix of naivete and flattery which made me want to take the meeting. I suspect it is the same case for others. I will not make the same mistake the next time it happens.

[brianwawok]

Do you think this stops the fork? It’s not like they can’t read the code.

[phillebaba]

Well your license is only as good as you are able to enforce it. Even with the law there is no guarantees.

I grew up thinking that people would follow the spirit of open source rather than the specific letter of the law. This is obviously not true, and probably never has been.

[udev4096]

No license stops someone from spinning off an OSS project into their closed-sourced enterprise offering. It's just sad that most corps see nothing wrong with this

[Ajedi32]

GPL definitely does.

[pabs3]

The GPL (and AGPL) are easy to comply with for a corporation, or anyone else really. Just redistribute your modifications under the same license, and ensure users can run modified versions on devices you distribute and you are done.

[nordsieck]

> GPL definitely does.

Clearly it doesn't because companies get caught doing it with GPL software all the time.

... and the only recourse is to sue them into compliance.

[nativeit]

Were folks under the impression there were other options for license violations? Your comment implies that a lawsuit being the only recourse to enforce a license renders that license moot.

[j45]

Still doesn't waste your time.

Large corporations should and can be extremely clear about their intention, which is clear to them before they reach out.