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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@beehaw.org

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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@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago (1 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@beehaw.org 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 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.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Looks like Jobs himself was stealing here ;)

Only he changed the original to make himself look better.

[–] squaresinger@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

Immoral? No, not at all. A waste of resources? Maybe. Depends. Maybe you are better off contributing to the other project, maybe not.

[–] Bjoern_Tantau@feddit.de 0 points 1 year ago

There are already 5 or so Android apps for Lemmy, at least 2 iPhone apps and 2 Linux apps on Flathub. Go ahead.

If the available software doesn't work as you want it to and you have the skill and time to make something you like go ahead. Often enough in the open source world devs of "competing" programs actually help each other.

So in the end you will just make the world a better place with your contribution.