this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023

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Hey guys, this time I really messed up :/ (kbin.social)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by ernest@kbin.social to c/kbinMeta@kbin.social

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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.

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[–] Adderalldependent@kbin.social 18 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is the kind of transparent communication that buys so much goodwill and trust from the community. I've been enjoying my first experience in the Fediverse with Kbin, and the response here only makes me love it that much more. Nicely handled.

[–] PtitSerpent@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I think we did a good choice

[–] JonEFive@kbin.social 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Agreed. I had already created an account on a Lemmy instance (Lemmy.one since I wanted to avoid the two main .ml instances). I had just about settled but decided to give Kbin a try. While it doesn't seem quite as far along in it's development, it struck me as a better user experience. Combined with reservations I have about the Lemmy developers... Well, here we are. And seeing this level of involvement and dedication to doing the right thing from the developer confirms that choice. Kudos @ernest

[–] DerWilliWonka@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

As I am totally new to this whole thing, could you elaborate for me on those reservations about the lemmy developers? And are those the same that created lemmy.world?

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[–] 0xtero@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Seems just like another day with open source software.
You gotta be careful about licensing and attribution and it can get really messy, but no big deal really.
Seems like you're correcting this and acting in good faith.

It shouldn't happen, but it happens. Thanks for the transparency

[–] Figaro@readit.buzz 0 points 2 years ago

Agreed, that's the key - act in good faith.

If you make a mistake, try to fix it in good faith. Seems like that's what is happening. 👍

[–] azura@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

It's alright. I do think the actual issue was worded perhaps a bit harshly and combative, and I think you responded correctly. Very much appreciate the accountability here. To be honest if anything, this probably gives me more faith in you in the long run. There are many ways you could have dealt with it, but as far as I can see you've dealt with the issue as honorably as you could have.
Proper attribution can be tricky. We all learn. We all make mistakes. A lot of us will never release a project that makes it as far as yours has so even our issues don't become even nearly as visible.
Keep your head up and stay calm. You're doing great. We got you.

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[–] j3j5@hachyderm.io 1 points 2 years ago (3 children)

@ernest Hey man, if it's of any help, I have a PHP (laravel) project which mostly federates fine, license is AGPLv3 as well, so feel free to reuse what you see fit.

[–] ernest@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

It makes a strong impression at first glance.

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[–] knoland@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Cross-posting my comment:

This is one of my largest frustrations with the open source community. Everything is immediately assumed as malicious. There is no escalation, it's "you screwed me over" from the jump.

I suppose it's bred from decades of large corporations pilfering open source for profit. However, this post could easily have been, "I noticed there's some code I wrote that wasn't attributed, would you mind adding that?". Escalate from there if the appropriate actions aren't taken.

[–] neonfire@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

For real, the person's name is LitigousEmma. This is one step away from a copyright troll, which imo seems to the the mortal enemy of the idea of FOSS. Did this Emma recognize all the developers of the programming languages they used, or the people who made the computer they worked on, or the pioneers of electronics in general? It's not like Emma took quarks and atoms and turned it into an web aggregator.

[–] knoland@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

In LitigousEmma's defense, kbin did not comply with the license terms of the open source software, so there is a valid concern here. Unlike most programming languages which are often released under licenses which do not requite attribution.

However, mistakes happen. The open source community is better off if we could all just start from 0 and escalate based on response.

[–] gus@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Honestly that's my only issue with this. Ernest was totally rightfully called out for this, as he should have been. But Emma's knee jerk reaction is just a real bad look. Don't make any attempt to reach out and figure out why it's in there. Immediately make a public post accusing him of stealing code, trying to hide that he stole it, and claim it as his own...on a FOSS project no less...

Surely there's a step or 2 before that point..

[–] knoland@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I don't have any issue with opening an issue in the repo, that part seems reasonable. It, by definition, is an issue with the codebase.

[–] gus@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Right, I wasn't saying it shouldn't have been a public post. Just that the public post shouldn't have immediately jumped to accusations. FOSS or not, accusing someone of stealing code and intentionally trying to obfuscate its origin to pass it off as their own is a big deal for a developer. One that can destroy your reputation

A simple "I've noticed snippets in here of my work that falls under a license which is not attributed at all. Could you add the proper attributions or remove it from your project?" says the same thing and doesn't jump to any accusations that you have no idea if are true or not

[–] Rhaedas@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not knowing either parties at all, I'd say the best solution is to assume both meant the best and some mistakes were made. One for forgetting to give credit for code, the other for wording in their asking to fix the mistake. At the end of the day, credit is given and the code grows, both benefit. Don't dwell on the small stuff that got there, problem is solved.

[–] gus@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Agreed! Totally think this is a learning experience for both sides

An...earnest mistake?

I'm sorry

[–] Adama@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Some good points but a counter point to consider.

Whether it’s a photo used without permission by a big company or people using your work without attribution there does tend to be a dismissive attitude overall (not that that is the case here)

I can see how somebody could come into this situation with that as the background and just cut right to the chase.

There wasn’t a “cease and desist” (the legal equivalent of an ahem) nor a DMCA copyright takedown (harsher but less financial damaging than a copyright suit with damages)

Their tone was scolding but it was a “hey… heads up… you gotta fix this” without resorting to any of the above.

Ernest took it with the right attitude and Emma accepted it and that’s that.

Couldn’t really ask for a better outcome and Emma has every right to come out swinging harder than she did.

I can’t speak to her experience with this but personally it is sometimes better to be firm (but fair) at the outset so people don’t ignore a softer tone requiring you to escalate it.

That’s just bad for everybody all around.

[–] neonfire@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Copyright is the enemy of freedom and knowledge. What if Einstein copyrighted E=MC^2? Emma didn't create the software, they just figured out how to make it.

[–] Adama@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

And instead of making it closed they made it available under open source licensing. With the only terms being attribution.

They’re not the bad guy here. Nor is Ernest. There’s no bad guys here just a mistake, a call to fix it, a fix and an acceptance of that fix.

Really Ernest showed the perfect example of “if you have to eat crow eat it while it’s young and tender”

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[–] DracolaAdil@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I agree. Firstly, a public post...and secondly...a public post bashing a fellow developer with passive aggressive quotes.

Now I may be assuming but it didn't seem like LitigiousEmma mad an attempt to privately contact Ernest and... and assumed the worst in the post.

I'm just a reddit normie so I don't know what happens behind the scenes but so far Ernest has been earnest and honest... as long as that is the case I'll stand with you bud!

You made a mistake and are taking responsibility for it. I respect that!

P.S. - Notice how LitigiousEmma's post is recent. LE just wants their name out there. If Kbin flopped then no fs would be given.

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[–] HanaSolo@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks, Ernest. You’re good people. 😊

[–] eltimablo@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

You handled this extremely well, especially in the face of someone so clearly looking for things to be outraged by. LitigiousEmma had no reason to be that aggressive right out of the gate and comes off as someone that the Open Source community would be significantly better off without.

[–] whenlifegivesyoureddit@kbin.social 1 points 2 years ago

It was a mistake and you went about this the right way. You're doing an amazing job!

[–] ReCursing@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] FrostBolt@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

Thank you for the transparency

[–] lixus98@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

We appreciate the transparency and hope everything can be solved without much friction. Keep it up!

[–] lh@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

Seems to me you're handling it the best way possible - yes, re-using open source code without proper attribution is an unfortunate mistake, but you've also clearly explained the reasons it happened. I also understand why the original code author reacted very strongly; when code is stolen maliciously and with intent, it's a huge "fuck you" to the original authors, who have freely released their code on the basis that they receive attribution of their use.

Good to see you've subsequently made up, and the code can stay. Thanks for being transparent, @ernest!

[–] miroppb@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

Website is definitely running faster. Thank you @ernest

[–] effingjoe@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

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@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

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.

[–] Gigahertz5061@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

Although I'm parroting other's sentiments, I really do appreciate the transparency you have shown. Keep up the good work!

[–] Anon2971@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

That's ok dude. That's the nature of coding. We all copy and paste and take ideas from other places. Attributing is a low priority for minor personal projects and now suddenly your personal project is a bit bigger.

All good. No harm done. I look forward to seeing how this platform grows even more.

[–] riskable@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Oh this is no big deal at all (because your code is already open source)! I've dealt with similar situations at businesses before and it's just a matter of including the correct licenses and annotating the code where appropriate.

Let's say you used some AGPLv3 (strongest copyleft license) licensed code and you're not distributing your code under that same license. How do you use the AGPLv3 code in your code even though you're using say, Apache 2.0 license? The simplest way is to move that AGPLv3 licensed code into it's own folder/file(s) and put that license in there along with it. Also make sure you add a note about this in your LICENSE file and indicate that if someone includes that specific code in their own implementation they'll need to adhere to the AGPLv3.

Some FOSS licenses are incompatible with each other but I don't think you have that issue. For stuff like the Zip license, Apache license, MIT, and similar licenses where you must "give credit" just add comments surrounding that code saying where it came from, what license it uses, and also include references to it in the LICENSE file.

Loads of FOSS repos have complex stuff like this! It's a bit tedious for sure but it's not rocket science. You just have to do your homework and basically, "write everything down" (giving everyone credit and paying close attention to special cases like the AGPLv3).

[–] heyda@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

@ernest I appreciate the transparency on this. Don't beat yourself up too much though, we all make mistakes and this one is easily fixable with attribution.

[–] sickcodebruh@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

Mistakes happen, what matters is how you recover from them. Keep doing what you’re doing!

[–] Timwi@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

You, sir, are an honorable person. I think I can speak for all open-source hobby programmers when I say: you make us proud.

[–] demvoter@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

I have no idea what this means but admitting your mistakes shows you are a mensch. Appreciate the updates and the effort!

[–] rosatherad@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

Most of the techy stuff goes over my head, but I do understand the importance of giving credit, as a student in the world of science academia. It looks like you're handling the situation well. We're all human, we all make mistakes, and plagiarism is a serious thing that slips under our noses sometimes. You're learning from this experience, which is a good thing!

[–] aral@mastodon.ar.al 0 points 2 years ago

@ernest Shit happens. Thanks for owning it and making it right :)

💕

[–] H2SO4@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

I think it just becomes a habit to use public libraries as a developer, that licences is not something you give a lot of thought after a while. And then your project blows up and a developer asks for an attribution. Which you gave, and was accepted! I don't understand the drama! It feels like it was settled very amenable and friendly!

[–] Ultra980@kbin.social 0 points 2 years ago

I feel like you being this transparent about the whole development process is really going to help you earn the users' trust :)

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