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Is it immoral to "1-up" an already existing FOSS project? (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 years ago by haroldstork@lemm.ee to c/foss

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Since we're on lemmy, I'll use this as an example. If someone were making a GNOME (GTK4 + libadwaita) Lemmy frontend, and I were to start working on my own Lemmy frontend for GNOME, thereby competing with this already existing project for users, is that wrong? To make things more interesting, what if I wanted write my Lemmy client in Rust since I didn't like the original being written in Python? To make things even more interesting, what if that project is slow in development due to the developer not having a lot of time? My gut instinct is that it is immoral. I feel like I would be taking away a project that the author had sunk some amount of time in, hoping to impact others in a positive way. I understand there is no guarantee that my project does better than theirs, but I should still be conscientious of the possibility, right? Let me know your thoughts FOSS community.

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[–] bear_delune 64 points 2 years ago (2 children)

If it’s free, it’s not competing.

If you want to make something, go ahead and build it.

Artists don’t compete with other artists

[–] GuyDudeman 20 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

Steve Jobs attributed the quote “Good artists copy; great artists steal.” to Pablo Picasso.

However, the original adage seems to originate from 1892

“Great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil.

[–] ram@lemmy.ca 13 points 2 years ago

Steve Jobs was a great enough artist that he even stole the quote holy shit 🤯

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 3 points 2 years ago

Looks like Jobs himself was stealing here ;)

Only he changed the original to make himself look better.

[–] bear_delune 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Nothing is original anyway, might as well do it for the love of it

[–] PaupersSerenade 3 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Non technical, but the amount of Bible stuff I know because lit authors can't go a day without referencing it. Everything is referential it feels

[–] bear_delune 4 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

It’s more that the Bible is a cornerstone of the zeitgeist for a lot of people.

When we create, we use semiotics in order to communicate ideas and feelings. The bible is so prevalent for so many people; the language, icons and themes it uses become the foundations on how we share ideas.

As an artist, you’ve gotta be speaking the language that people know and the bible has been foundational in how we express.

Classical art speaks as to humanity & god, Modern art speaks as to humanity & ourselves, Postmodernism speaks.

[–] crank 2 points 2 years ago

there's nothing new under the sun

[–] Parsnip8904 1 points 2 years ago

Somehow this has become a red flag for me. Especially in science stuff.I ditched a book yesterday because the first 15 pages were about how mental health maps to kingdom of heaven.

[–] Shareni@programming.dev 6 points 2 years ago (1 children)

If it’s free, it’s not competing.

The more popular project will most likely receive more monetary and code contributions. So they are competing for survival.

Artists don’t compete with other artists

I see that you spent no time around artists

[–] bear_delune 2 points 2 years ago

If they’re competing it’s a business not art in my opinion, but sure.

Existing in parallel doesn’t define competing