today i was reminded of hastebin for some reason.
for context: hastebin.com was a site hosting the open source hastebin software to temporarily store text. it was very simple: you paste your text and then you save it. it could then be shared with anyone.
few years later it got acquired by toptal and the service went to the shitters but i digress…
how can an open source project just be acquired by someone like toptal? i know there tend to be central leaders on open source projects (which can be passed onto others) and hosting services can be costly but i figured due to the nature of open source that it is harder to take over a project…
yes i know forking is an option and that people did do that but still. under the stewardship of toptal from what ive seen the project went quite in the gutters and i havent heard of hastebin in years…
if it’s tied to a domain name, that domain can be acquired.
the code that is open source stays like that, but if they get all original authors on board, they can release a new version that is not open source; basically a closed source fork.
this is because the original authors can re-release their intellectual property under different licenses as much as they want, but then it’s out there with multiple licenses and people can choose which version they want to use as long as they respect the license that comes with that version.