Wow, pretty clear how he feels about it. But also he made plenty of money of Apollo and then just shut it down and refused to open source it. So I don’t feel particularly inclined to change my behavior here.
Edit: All these people white knighting a dev that made millions off his app.
Well now we have multiple great FOSS options instead of one or two dominant paid apps. I was a happy Apollo user, but the current state of things feels more in line with the ideals behind Lemmy. So maybe his actions led to a more positive outcome than if he had kept on going like people wanted.
I mean, he provided a great app for free for years. Why should he open source it, just because he also earned cash with it? As far as I know he was also in talks with premium members so that they could get their money back but I’m not updated on that. And of course he shut it down, the app essentially became useless.
I didn’t say he was obligated to open source it. He gains nothing by keeping it closed. If he had open sourced it I could still use it because I have a Reddit API key. If he open sourced it, it could be converted to work with Lemmy. But he effectively burned it down.
He doesn’t owe it to me to open source it but I can still think it was a shitty selfish decision.
He also gains nothing from open sourcing it
People need to stop having the expectation that everything should be open source. It shouldn’t, nor will it ever be
Why would he have any obligation to open source a project he was shutting down? If he made the code open, that would be a kind and generous gesture. Not an expected and assumed action.
Here are my takeaway. Christian does sound slightly miffed at the fact that Voyager has copied much of the look and feel of Apollo. Even though he has not contributed any code directly to the Voyager app, he has indeed “contributed” to it indirectly. I highly doubt Christian will go after Voyager app in a legal manner. He definitely would have a legal standing to do so but that would alienate his support from the past Apollo community that has moved onto Voyager. There is just no reason for him to do so. I suppose I can imagine a crazy scenario where Apollo IP switches hands to another company and that company decides to take legal action against Voyager but that seems highly unlikely. In retrospect it would have been nice if developer of Voyager basically got permission or just simply asked Christian if it’s okay to use the look and feel of Apollo in writing. That would have avoided any awkwardness or ambiguity.
Hm, does Voyager have his blessing for being so similar to Apollo I wonder?
Pretty sure you’re not a lawyer so pretty sure you CAN’T be pretty sure about this
You’re pretty sure, but you are wrong. The closest would be a design patent
Seems like it does not, but it also seems like Christian isn’t really taking action against it.
I don’t believe there is fuck-all he can do about it, unless it’s somehow directly lifting code.
Thats probably why he hasnt done fuck all, that doesnt mean he has to like it.
Mods removing a lot of comments. No reason given.
@christianselig@mastodon.social Can you share some clarification on your thoughts on the Voyager app?
@ChristianSelig Sorry, not sure if the original mention went through on Lemmy or not
