Hey guys, this time I really messed up :/

I think you should see something.

Like I mentioned many time before, this isn't my first attempt at creating an aggregator. Years ago, I built something similar, and back then I drew a lot of inspiration from Postmill. This time, to avoid starting from scratch, I get some elements from my old snippets. Originally, kbin was meant to be a project just for me and a few friends, so I didn't attribute the origin authors. That's not an excuse, though — I should have done it right away when the project became public on git. I have a point in my roadmap called "Preparing a repository for contributors," where I allocated a significant amount of time to educate myself about licenses, attributions, and so on. Unfortunately, everything unfolded in the wrong order.

https://codeberg.org/Kbin/kbin-core/issues/196

I think Emma is right. Since I share my small successes with you, I also want to be transparent about my failures and mistakes. I will push the proper attributions to the repository today along with some critical fixes.

To avoid reinventing the wheel, I took some code used in federation from Pixelfed as well. Essentially, there are two projects two projects will be marked. However, I have never concealed this fact:

https://kbin.social/m/random/p/254858/The-real-reason-why-I-haven-t-published-the-pixelfed-app#post-comment-438684

I mean that I'm not a guy who wants to steal your code. It's obvious that someone will take a look at the code of a project that is very similar to theirs. Sometimes, I just become terribly messy when I have to do many things at once. This lesson will definitely teach me to prioritize tasks better.

In the end, I can only promise that once everything settles down and I manage to extract a library for ActivityPub, I will revisit the Postmill repository, this time with a pull request proposal.

You should definitely check it out.

https://postmill.xyz/ - Project page
https://raddle.me/ - Postmill instance
https://pixelfed.org/ - Of course, everyone here is familiar with this one ;)

PS. the website should be running a bit faster. I will talk about it next time.

DaisyLee,

Licenses are hard. The fact that you are being transparent means this was not malice. Keep improving, and it all will work out in the end.

ReCursing,
ReCursing avatar

Everyone makes mistakes. Your response was not to deny or try to redirect blame, but to own up to it and fix the problem - and there is no lasting harm. Honestly if anyone asks for more than that they're being an arse! Keep doing what you're doing, I'm one of the trillions of Reddit refugees, and I like what I see here

As a thought, this project is clearly suddenly getting much bigger than you intended. Maybe see if you can take inspiration from Linux Torvalds about how to manage a project on this scale while retaining control of it - he is basically the benevolent dictator of the Linux kernel, what he says goes (and he has had some very famous arguments!), but he does delegate and take help where he needs it.

anthoniix,
anthoniix avatar

I honestly don't see this as a big deal, but I'm glad that you're being honest and open. Attribution is cool and all, but Emma makes it sound like you committed some sort of cardinal sin. I can never understand why someone who uses a permissive license gets so upset when their work is not attributed, you gain almost nothing from it.

Again though, attribution is still a net good. I think it's the polite thing to do, and I'm glad you're doing it.

sab,
sab avatar

When you ask for very little (credit for your hard work), it's even more infuriating when you're deprived of it. You could compare it to stealing ideas in academia - the omission of one tiny reference makes a huge difference.

That said, there is such a thing as a honest mistake, and Ernest is handling it in the best way possible. But there are enough instances of permissive licences being abused that I don't blame the original author for initially taking it badly.

anthoniix,
anthoniix avatar

That's fair, I guess I just view it differently. For me what I actually care about is copyleft. If someone says they used something I made I couldn't care less. At the end of the day I care if it's open source, if it's not then we have a problem.

0x1C3B00DA,
0x1C3B00DA avatar

I agree these things are a big deal for the original author, but you also have to consider what the other party is doing with your work. The tone of that issue is pretty hostile when a simple issue saying could you grant me proper attribution would have worked just as well. Ernest isn't a large company trying to profit of their work, he's just one dude. He was building a small project for just himself and released without clearing up his attributions. Its a small mistake that's easily rectified and didn't need to be so hostile.

RaleighEnt,

Damn emma really tore into you in that issue lol. A lot of assumptions about malicious intentions when a simple mistake seems much more likely. I mean I know they're in the right defending their work but damn idk if they needed to make such a big public stink about it lol

0xtero,
0xtero avatar

Contacting the project "officially" through the the public tracker was the right thing to do.
As for the tone of the message - I don't think it was out of line considering the circumstances.

Mistakes do happen (licensing is actually hard) - and I'm happy to see it got fixed fast.

RaleighEnt,

Yeah I suppose you're right. Just the little digs at earnest's character seem needlessly hostile to me. like saying he edited the code to hide its origins or saying "what would your sponsors think?"

idk. just don't like it. I do feel for them, I'm sure having your work copied without credit sucks. just wish we could all be friends and hold hands and shit:(

0x1C3B00DA,
0x1C3B00DA avatar

Mistakes do happen (licensing is actually hard)

Which is why the tone is striking people here as over the top. Ernest is clearly not a large business trying to profit off their work so some benefit of the doubt was warranted.

Ernest corrected it and the story is over so none of this matters, but open source devs going at other devs who make a mistake with attribution just makes the ecosystem a less nice place to be. Save that hostility for the ones trying to take advantage of others

ernest,
ernest avatar

It seems to me that she did it very gently ;)

strepto,
strepto avatar

Don't stress ernest. Mistakes happen

LegendofDragoon,
LegendofDragoon avatar

If there's anything I've learned from programmer humor reaching all it's that 95% of code is creatively liberated.

That being said I'm happy to hear you being transparent and giving the credit where it's due!

Keep up the good work man and try not to burn yourself out, I know this just be a stressful time!

LollerCorleone,
LollerCorleone avatar

I like you even more now for admitting your mistake without any hesitation and taking the steps to rectify your error. Keep up the good work!

j4yc33,
j4yc33 avatar

Right?! This is winning some direct support right here!

Otome-chan,
Otome-chan avatar

The title here scared me so much haha. It just seems like there's a credit issue? I don't think you've done anything wrong. Small projects naturally are like that, and kbin kinda exploded in size quite fast, so it's understandable. Transparency is good. There's no rush I think. Honestly this post just makes me realize even more how awesome kbin is and how great of a dev and admin you are. It's rare to see. Massive kudos.

KbinItTogether,
KbinItTogether avatar

Frankly, it's very refreshing to see someone running the show that has this combination of work ethic, passion without hunger for power, and honesty. Thank you for the transparency!

You've obviously got a million things going on a minute here. Like someone juggling flaming swords, I don't think anyone is going to blame you for dropping one accidentally while more fire-soaked swords keep being tossed at you. Seems like you know what to do and that there are a lot of talented folks here willing to provide help anyway they can. We're with you (me in the sentimental sense, I'm not so talented when it comes to coding)!

effingjoe, (edited )
effingjoe avatar

Is 'LitigiousEmma' an inside joke, or an extremely relevant username? haha

Edit: For some reason this keeps bouncing around in my head and the more I think about the more I believe that Emma should have contacted you privately (at first, anyway) instead of jumping right into attempting to publicly shame you.

0xtero,
0xtero avatar

Edit: For some reason this keeps bouncing around in my head and the more I think about the more I believe that Emma should have contacted you privately (at first, anyway) instead of jumping right into attempting to publicly shame you.

The issue tracker for kbin codebase was the correct place to submit the complaint.

Licensing issues are tricky and if you're the copyright holder there's no way to know if people stealing your code are acting in good faith or not. Best course of action is to document and report the violations "officially". You need to have a clear track record in case the other part is going to try to deny or obfuscate the situation.

It was the right thing to do.

As for the tone and the username.
From what I can see, she's the main dev for that codebase and has been for many, many years. She gets to decide the tone, she's the one who's defending her rights and work.

Having said that, ernest handled it well - and is clearly acting in good faith. So that should be the end of that.

slowd0wn,

I’m not a coder, so hopefully you can answer my question. When using open source code, does each instance of borrowed code need to be “tagged” and identified to attribute to the original author? My brain keeps telling me that all this code needs is a MLA reference page, but after reading this post I’m assuming it’s more difficult than that.

bspar,

Yup that's basically it. If you have some electronic device (like an Android or iPhone), you can go to some sort of "about phone" setting page and poke around for a licenses button that'll show you all the software that your device uses. It's just proper attribution.

I've done reverse engineering and found obvious illegally used GPL code in closed source projects, and they could (theoretically) get in big trouble for not following the license. (I anonymously requested their source based on the terms of the license, but the company threatened to sue for reverse engineering, so it's often not worth it)

NoIWontPickaName,

Hi Emma!

VulcanSphere,
VulcanSphere avatar

We appreciate your honesty and transparency, keep up the good work!

BaroqueInMind,
BaroqueInMind avatar

Thank you for being fearless in your honesty and humble with your mistakes. Keep up the momentum bro.

InduperatorRex,
InduperatorRex avatar

This is exactly what we like to see, people actually taking responsibility for their mistakes and rectifying them in an open and transparent manner

Saturdaycat,
Saturdaycat avatar

@ernest thank you for being transparent with us, it's what we can hope for when on platforms like this. I am happy to be here on kbin!

developerjustin,
@developerjustin@mastodon.social avatar

@ernest I thought you killed someone, based on the title 😂

I agree with the other commenter. Seems like you’re making it right. This is a new and sometimes messy frontier for a lot of people and processes. If someone is worried about protecting their IP, this isn’t the hill to die on.

Reliant1087,

Me too. I was mentally dreading a ReiserFS moment.

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