[−]president_zippy · 2026-08-30 Sun 03:43 UTC ·
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You didn't deserve to be downvoted to hell and back. People deserve to be paid for their work, and without copyright law only mega-cap companies would ever be able to capture enough value from their work to survive.
People act like you're saying Disney should be able to hold a copyright on Mickey Mouse for over 100 years.
Calling it a "rug pull" when the creator of an open source project decides to stop giving away future work for free is a delusional level of self-entitlement.
(1) The previous releases are still open source. If you don't like it, fork the last free release and maintain it yourself.
(2) People deserve whatever the market is willing to pay for their work. See above.
Frankly, if D. Richard Hipp decided to stop giving away future versions of SQLite for free, I would be the first person to congratulate him for finally having the courage to put his foot down and say "my fellow committers and I deserve at least a few million dollars for 20 years of work making something that billions of machines rely upon."
Open-source is an inherently radical anti-capitalist philosophy. In your eyes everyone "deserves" what the market is willing to pay, but open-source developers would rather donate their time and energy to create or contribute to something that is freely accessible to anyone and everyone. Also, believe it or not, but some people are not motivated by money, and actually derive value from the process of creating software.
The issue with rug-pulls like this is that they are deceptively masquerading with this philosophy as a calculated business strategy to adopt users. Then in this case they start using deceptive tactics like removing build files so they can continue appearing to be fully open source, even though they are violating the spirit of that term. Finally, they drop the facade when it is deemed valuable enough. Even if you are a strict capitalist, there is nothing virtuous or meritocratic about these kinds of business strategies, they rely on tricky, concealed intentions, and rightfully deserve criticism.
I'll also add that there is nothing "courageous" about deciding to extract more value from your labor at the expense of public accessibility. True courage is found in acts of selfless sacrifice.
> Open-source is an inherently radical anti-capitalist philosophy.
No it isn't. Open source isn't inherently political in any way. Maybe that's what it's about to you, but I open source things because I want to give to others out of a general sense of wishing to build up the whole community. I don't have anything against capitalism.
First off, in some sense everything is political. Next, I am not claiming that you can't be supporter of open source while also holding a wide array of associated political views. My point is that the concept of open source fundamentally rejects the ideal capitalist conception of the world as a bunch of purely rational self-interested agents seeking to optimize wealth and economic output. Willingly performing labor for its own sake, for the benefit of others, with no expectation of return value, is obviously not capitalist behavior.
I effectively agree with you, but your last comment is interesting in the usage of the word "courage". My understanding of D. Richard Hipp's state of being is that he feels fairly financially compensated (via support contracts), and more so, emotionally compensated by knowing that his work adds value to other people's lives and having value in that.
Money's a good thing to have, but having purpose in life is incredibly valuable too.
People act like you're saying Disney should be able to hold a copyright on Mickey Mouse for over 100 years.
Calling it a "rug pull" when the creator of an open source project decides to stop giving away future work for free is a delusional level of self-entitlement.
(1) The previous releases are still open source. If you don't like it, fork the last free release and maintain it yourself.
(2) People deserve whatever the market is willing to pay for their work. See above.
Frankly, if D. Richard Hipp decided to stop giving away future versions of SQLite for free, I would be the first person to congratulate him for finally having the courage to put his foot down and say "my fellow committers and I deserve at least a few million dollars for 20 years of work making something that billions of machines rely upon."
The issue with rug-pulls like this is that they are deceptively masquerading with this philosophy as a calculated business strategy to adopt users. Then in this case they start using deceptive tactics like removing build files so they can continue appearing to be fully open source, even though they are violating the spirit of that term. Finally, they drop the facade when it is deemed valuable enough. Even if you are a strict capitalist, there is nothing virtuous or meritocratic about these kinds of business strategies, they rely on tricky, concealed intentions, and rightfully deserve criticism.
I'll also add that there is nothing "courageous" about deciding to extract more value from your labor at the expense of public accessibility. True courage is found in acts of selfless sacrifice.
No it isn't. Open source isn't inherently political in any way. Maybe that's what it's about to you, but I open source things because I want to give to others out of a general sense of wishing to build up the whole community. I don't have anything against capitalism.
Money's a good thing to have, but having purpose in life is incredibly valuable too.