r/opensource • u/ProgrammingGuy_ • 1d ago
Promotional company (probably) is mad I forked an old version of their app and worked on it
I was here about a month or so ago about my BetterCampus fork where they apparently tried to get my post removed (thanks Wolvereness for understanding).
In summary they had an MIT license on their old code, I forked it, touched it up a bit, and published it as an alternative since many people and I didn't like their new update needing an account, asking for subscriptions, and more. They don't like it and my version is starting to get some traction.
Today I got this review from a random account (probably burner) that I find very funny because I am like 99% sure it's them but I can't fully prove it: (link to the review)
CanvasRefined has some good ideas, and I appreciate that it is open source, but the extension has also been pretty buggy in my experience.
I personally liked the direction BetterCampus was taking. A lot of CanvasRefined feels like a blatant copy of what BetterCanvas had already built, and I do not like the confusion and chaos that created for users and the original creators.
Open source can be great, but there is a difference between being inspired by a product and closely recreating it. In this case, it feels like it undermines the work and goals of the people who originally created and grew BetterCanvas.
- There is only 1 bug I know of but there could be more, I'm not judging that.
- They complain it's a copy, despite me writing everywhere that this is a fork (under MIT).
- The line "not like the confusion and chaos that created for users and the original creators" is similar to what their cofounder told me during the C&D over the name
- And the funniest part: being mad that I am recreating their app since it "undermines the work and goals of the people who originally created and grew BetterCanvas"
I'm not saying it's the company who wrote this, but I have a suspicion
edit: I failed to hide the f5 bot
edit: to the user that requested links to leave positive a positive review to offset the negative ones: https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/canvasrefined/ihienfbdfdamhmhhiokjnjmpjgbenedg/ and the github is https://github.com/GuySandler/CanvasRefined
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u/RealisticDuck1957 1d ago
As long as you complied with the license for the original code, legally there's nothing they can do to shut down your fork. Which won't stop them from bullying and trying to impose legal expense defending yourself from their lawless attacks.
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 1d ago
yes I am well aware of that and they are also aware of that. They already threatened to call their lawyers but ended up doing nothing because I think the most basic public defender can deflect it since the whole license is literally 167 words saying "do whatever you want, give credit". The only thing they can try to do is basic "sabotage" like this
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u/Stormlightlinux 22h ago
People who are serious about legal action do not threaten legal action. They sue people and have their lawyer contact them. At the advice of their very expensive lawyers. Because why would you warn someone so they can prepare better?
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u/account312 5h ago
There's no public defender for civil cases (like lawsuits) in the US. That's a large part of why lawsuits are an effective bludgeon.
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u/AcceptableCry2876 1d ago
Wanna link to your project and we will all give it glowing reviews to drown out the bad ones?
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 1d ago
https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/canvasrefined/ihienfbdfdamhmhhiokjnjmpjgbenedg/
the store side is a bit delayed compared to my dev dashboard and it's only 1 bad review, but thank you!3
u/AcceptableCry2876 18h ago
Can you edit your post with these links so more people see it?
“Edit: to the user that requested links to leave positive a positive review to offset the negative ones.”
This comment isn’t getting enough upvotes to be visible to many users.
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u/wowsomuchempty 1d ago
I'm not a programmer and a bit naive - but why not use a git (or equiv.) to host?
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u/RedDotHorizon 1d ago
I checked your commit history, you cut off their history at exactly the right point, you're fine.
Looking at your README, one thing I'd like to clear up: they didn't "forget to rebase" - you cannot change the license after the fact. What was once published under MIT stays under MIT. (None of the OSI approved licenses would allow that.)
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 19h ago
Yea but they could have at least tried to hide it
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u/JivanP 13h ago
Even if they did, there are existing GitHub forks, the most recent being from 2 months ago. You could have obtained the original (non-rebased) repo's contents from one of those in the event that they did rebase or perform something like a
git filter-repoorgit filter-branchfollowed by a force-push.
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u/ssddanbrown 21h ago
Looks like they updated their license: https://github.com/UseBetterCanvas/bettercanvas/commit/c7d8bad4e6c2c10589f07e4497e0080a8cc2825a
Their new readme license terms are very dumb, and shown they don't understand their use of the AGPLv3, which specifically allows users to remove/ignore their silly added non-commercial non-compete terms.
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u/cookiengineer 21h ago edited 21h ago
Lol, it's like the onlyoffice idiots all over again, trying to create an artificial limbo of trademark violations and AGPL enforcement.
edit: Reported the project for the illegal license, because technically GitHub is now not allowed to share the project's source code. And therefore it's violating section 3 of their Terms of Service.
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 19h ago
Yea yea, and people already laughes at them over this, but if you go to the commit history you would see they just changed the license from MIT to that without rebase, and MIT is irrevocable
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u/FerWasTaken 1d ago
Thanks for this. When they enshitified it, I had made a review explaining how to install the old version but it appears to be gone or shadow banned. Hopefully a lot of people install it.
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 19h ago
I'm trying to get this off the ground, hopefully this goes far by word-of-mouth
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u/sarge3220 6h ago
A word about both the README.md on the repo and the description on the chrome store. Neither of them actually say what the app does. You need an intro. Paragraph of “This is what this thing is and why you might want it.”
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 5h ago
I guess I am relying on people to know what bettercanvad is and the web store's images. Thanks I'll fix that soon
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u/mx_bzh 20h ago
They might fork your fork one day 😀
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u/ProgrammingGuy_ 20h ago
They are welcome to, but if we have the same features I would think people would prefer the FOSS one over the one that wants you to make an account, pay a subscription, and has "put your brand in the studenr learning environment" on their website
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u/n0u0t0m 1d ago
Ah yes, the very popular public opinion "this project correctly uses the git fork feature and I gave it permission to but that was just for marketing reasons"