The nature of closed-source software is antithetical to the user's freedoms. In today's day and age, there is absolutely no reason to use proprietary software if a reasonable free software alternative exists.
If they don't want to make money, they still may want to be the first to release an improvement to their work. It's their right to keep control of the history (the sequence of events of the impact it made, its improvements and advances, etc.) of their own project. They may release the entire source code when the project is entirely complete . . . who knows, but it should not be demanded that they do so as soon as they release a trial version so that others who were not as clever and/or are envious can have a piece of the pie that was not offered to them.
And regarding money. Money doesn't grow on trees . . . and considering the fact that in the world that we actually live in, people make a killing by: cheating people, persuading (and even brain washing) people into buying things that they don't need, etc. Why are you so against people who actually create something that the people are asking for/need that you not hesitant at all but to try to destroy their reputation simply because they insist on doing what they want with their own stuff?
And it's a big possibility that people choose to release a trial version of their software for free to get feedback from a small sample size so that they can make a better version of it in the future to sell to a larger sample size. If they release their source code too, that will put others on the same playing field as them to sell the product. How is it fair that those who are given something equally deserve to make money off of what they got from someone else as the person who gave it to them? I'm not following.
I don't want to get carried away so I'll just make it clear. Knock it off. It's Gils choice and if you want to whine about and embarrass yourself in a baseless argument than you should take the advice of others and create your own algorithm database and if you still think that Gil is incorrect and arrogant and doesn't actually care, than I want you to provide me a reason why you can't create you own.
Unfortunately a lot of people in the history of this community think/thought this way. Not just about software, but about every aspect of cubing. So he is not alone in this ideology of how the world should work. At best, they would have reacted with something like, "If you don't want to give it to us for free and detach your name from it, why did you mention it to us at all?!"
I think if any of these cubers would actually invent something truly original, they would have more self-respect (and respect for other inventors wishes, hopes, and choices).
No, you just say "I am suspicious of [them]" if they don't. That's essentially a demand. "Make it open source exactly how I want or I'll publicly impugn your character" - since that's exactly what happened here. Surely you must see just how wrong that is.
Calling someone suspicious (or sus) is not by any stretch a demand on someone. Demanding would be if I messaged him "Make it free software NOW!!" Any coder who wants their program to have a maximal benefit for the community: to share and modify the program, like the WCA does, and to guarantee the software respects the freedom of its users like not spying, censoring, restricting usage, will voluntarily make it free software.
I don't want to get carried away so I'll just make it clear. Knock it off. It's Gils choice and if you want to whine about and embarrass yourself in a baseless argument than you should take the advice of others and create your own algorithm database and if you still think that Gil is incorrect and arrogant and doesn't actually care, than I want you to provide me a reason why you can't create you own.
I think this is a terrible argument. "If you don't like it, why don't you do better?"
I've been on various sides of this argument before: I've said this to other people (this very post is hypocritical, I'll admit), I've had other people say this to me (and sometimes I act on it), and now I'm decrying the entire line of argument altogether. It's an argument that can completely shut out any and all criticism. Hypothetically, if a product is mostly fantastic but has one flaw, I point the flaw, then the product's defenders come out in droves all pulling this argument. Nothing improves, nothing gets better, everyone gets upset (except for the odd few who thrive on conflict).
One way to do better is to build off of the existing product. Keep everything as it is, except fix that one flaw. (Problem: we cannot do this with proprietary content. Or… we can, but not legally.)
The other way is to start from scratch. Obviously, this is a lot of effort. A lot more effort than it takes to say "why don't you do better", in fact.
(There's a secondary point to be made here in that an alg database specifically derives its value from having a lot of users. Centralisation is what makes it useful; a competing alg database is just not going to get the eyeballs it needs to surpass the existing one, unless the existing one is garbage or unusable in some way. (cough cough AlgDb))
((And then that brings me to my tertiary point, which I hinted at in my first post here without spelling it out. When SCDB was launched, it was heavily advertised as being a successor to AlgDb that fixes all of its flaws. No more outdated algs! Automated alg review! Etc. Some of those turned out to be true, and fair enough. Some are… questionable. The problem with AlgDb's voting system is twofold. Firstly, it imported the votes from the old AlgDb, but it's no longer possible to log in to the old accounts, so it's also impossible to change votes on those algs. Secondly, most of the votes were from many years ago, and alg preferences have changed somewhat. SCDB obviously doesn't suffer from the first problem – it imported algs from AlgDb, but not their vote counts. The second problem is not truly fixed by SCDB. It merely delayed its onset. The voting system is a bit more fine-grained, since you can vote for 2H/OH/bigcube algs separately rip feet, but still essentially the same. Unless the voting system changes, old votes will linger on the site until eternity. Already there are people complaining that their favourite XXX alg somehow isn't at the top despite being "objectively optimal". I'm not saying this is an easy problem to solve! It just strikes me as a clear example of false advertising, when you claim to have solved a problem but in reality you just swept it under the rug.))
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(not really related to above reply except for burning even more weirdness points)
I also want to mention that Gil's early responses here contained flagrantly misleading information about free / open source licences, and both I and @qwr were trying to clear the air. Is that toxicity? I'll burn bridges and destroy friendships if I have to, to point out that someone is objectively wrong. (There is some leeway in how licences can be interpreted in a court of law, but the extent to which free licences were being misrepresented is well beyond the scope of any reasonable interpretation.)
If we're starting from the viewpoint that proprietary software is inherently unethical (qwr and I subscribe to this, apparently), then pointing out that someone is doing this seems… perfectly fair? This is, of course, subjective (I'm a moral relativist, sue me), and I don't think merely doing a few "unethical" things makes someone a terrible irredeemable person anyway. Sometimes there are necessary evils. Sometimes it's just easier. There are plenty of valid (and sometimes not-so-valid) excuses!
In the grand scheme, there are far worse things a person can do than "release proprietary software", and that's why I never harped on this point.
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edit to add:
I also want to say I'm grateful that Gil decided to make SCDB at all! Like I before: I'd prefer it was open, but even without being open it has been a greatly valuable resource. To the community, and to me personally.
Gil has access to my list of 30 things I don't like about SCDB. That list wouldn't be nearly as long if I wasn't also a happy user of SCDB outside of those gripes. I realise I haven't publicly said how much I appreciate it, so here it is.
Calling someone suspicious (or sus) is not by any stretch a demand on someone. Demanding would be if I messaged him "Make it free software NOW!!" Any coder who wants their program to have a maximal benefit for the community: to share and modify the program, like the WCA does, and to guarantee the software respects the freedom of its users like not spying, censoring, restricting usage, will voluntarily make it free software.
it was for the same reason, that when the co owner of The Cubicle, James Chang, approached me and asked me to have my code open sourced and remove all reference to their competing company in a whole different project - i refused. His reaction was to tell me he (and probably his company) will refuse to interface with any of my other non-promoted projects such as speedcubedb and cubedb.
so yeah, go ahead, force me to work for free, give up my code, and keep up my motivation doing it.
When you say James Chang (TheCubicle) asked you to open-source your code, do you mean speedcubestats.com? I'm a bit confused, I mean, that's powered by SCS and made by you, right? So why does James want to ask for open source, to the extent of threatening?
Also, you make monkeyleague.org for them (which I suppose it's sponsored by TheCubicle)
I think I must either misunderstood something, or the request/threatening is beyond my understanding
When you say James Chang (TheCubicle) asked you to open-source your code, do you mean speedcubestats.com? I'm a bit confused, I mean, that's powered by SCS and made by you, right? So why does James want to ask for open source, to the extent of threatening?
Also, you make monkeyleague.org for them (which I suppose it's sponsored by TheCubicle)
I think I must either misunderstood something, or the request/threatening is beyond my understanding
All true. And while I did make monkeyleague.org free of charge, just to hear some cubicle sponsorees are removing cubedb.net and speedcubedb.com links because "the cubicle will not like it".
Calling someone suspicious (or sus) is not by any stretch a demand on someone. Demanding would be if I messaged him "Make it free software NOW!!" Any coder who wants their program to have a maximal benefit for the community: to share and modify the program, like the WCA does, and to guarantee the software respects the freedom of its users like not spying, censoring, restricting usage, will voluntarily make it free software.
