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

submitted 1 year 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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[–] GuyDudeman 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year ago

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

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 3 points 1 year ago

Looks like Jobs himself was stealing here ;)

Only he changed the original to make himself look better.

[–] bear_delune 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] PaupersSerenade 3 points 1 year 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 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year 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 1 year ago

there's nothing new under the sun

[–] Parsnip8904 1 points 1 year 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.