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by zabzonk 302 days ago
What does "OSS repo acquisition" even mean?
2 comments
jeroenhd 302 days ago
They paid and hired the developer of an open source program for their AI startup to give them control over it.

I don't know why they'd report on it in startup-speak like this, I doubt investors will care. Must be an ad.

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brabel 302 days ago
If the repo is popular it does have potential to funnel some users to their startup product. And apparently it did do that in the end.
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slightwinder 302 days ago
Apparently, administrative permissions and the name/URL. In this case also the dev. As it's under MIT-license, they can't buy the software itself, but they can control the public appearance and merges, until someone forks it and becomes more successful.
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reverius42 302 days ago
> As it's under MIT-license, they can't buy the software itself

This is a common misconception. Just because the author or original IP owner chose to release it under MIT doesn't mean they no longer own it -- and if the company wants to acquire it they can. They can never remove-from-the-internet the existing MIT-licensed versions (though they could take down their own copies), but being the owners they could certainly decide to release future versions under a different license.

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