I mean I get the service part, but why can’t somebody not just copy your code and do it better? Or just take your code make it closed source? Thanks
In: 1
As far as the “what’s preventing someone from taking the code and making it better”… that is the point of opensourcing software. But assuming you mean “whats to stop them from stealing it, close sourcing their own version of it, and selling it”: it depends entirely on the licensing.
Opensouce =/= free-for-all
When something is Opensource it means that the code is sitting out in public for anyone to use, but there can still be a license associated with it. Licensing gets *really* complicated very quickly, but in general they range from fairly permissive licenses (like the MIT license) where you can basically do whatever you want, to fairly restrictive licenses (like GNU GPL).
Restrictive licenses usually do something where they require you to also opensource any modifications you make under the same license. Or preventing you from close sourcing your own fork of the software. These can be called “copyleft”. Again, it can be complicated but *in general* it means that you’re granting some freedoms over your copyrighted software with the requirement that any derivative works maintain those same freedoms.
This whole area gets fairly complicated. There are probably hundreds of licenses out there, each can have subtle differences.
Latest Answers