"We had 847 AGPL dependencies blocking our acquisition. MalusCorp liberated them all in 3 weeks. The due diligence team found zero license issues. We closed at $2.3B."
Marcus Wellington III Former CTO, Definitely Real Corp
(Acquired)
Or further down
Trusted by industry leaders who prefer to remain anonymous
It feels like an art installation that actually can be used if someone really wanted to sabotage their business by creating a dependency on an unfixable mess. I truly believe there might be a substantial amount of business idiots out there who think all of this is a good idea lol
I think this is just for fun. However, I did work for a company where we did everything in-house from scratch, down to our own font face, because we couldn't afford the legal costs associated with deciphering license agreements.
I have no idea, their website doesn't seem to work very well on my phone, I can't bring up their About Us or Privacy Policy / Terms of Service for some reason either.
It's real satire, the worst kind. Or I guess you could call it self-aware trash? The whole site is "satire" and makes jokes about how this is bad for the ecosystem... But then, the product works. It accepts payments and delivers code in return.
It's real. It's very real, they're very transparent about how shady and horrible they are, and their entire process, and why it is technically not illegal, and how aware they are of all of it.
Edit: I got got. Honestly, in this modern landscape, can you blame me for thinking people bragging about how they're legally using AI to steal data were being satirical? The Onion notoriously can't keep up with real world news, cut me a break.
Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or shaming the perceived flaws of individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into improvement.[1] Although satire is usually meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit to draw attention to both particular and wider issues in society.
Private owners and small businesses still get to have principles or choose to do things the right way. For all its faults, Steam is often talked about in this way. Corporations on the other hand have to view every square of toilet paper through the lens of profit and loss on the timescale of a single fiscal year or even a single quarter. I often wonder if it is even ethical to invest because doing so profitably seems to inherently feed this system of economic cannibalism.
We are incentivising companies to find the maximum spread between their expenses and their revenue at any cost and we are arming them with the tools and data to ruthlessly pursue this goal. You WILL be monetized. A scam is the most lucrative business of all because it only takes into account the benefit of one party. No wonder almost every brand name now days carries the reputation of a used tissue. They're just taking the whole pie because the middle class isn't needed anymore. It served its purpose by distracting Americans from some of the "communist" ideas happening at home and elsewhere in the world in the 70's. That's not needed anymore because they're projecting power through surveillance and social influencing instead.
I'd rather see everyone share and contribute to open-source code that moves all of humanity forward than private companies stealing other peoples work because they don't want to share credit.
Maybe I just mean stocks in general, not the stock market or exchange. But stocks without public trading and speculating are still around and a good thing that can support creating value.
I own some stock in my bank and a farm.
For the farm, the stocks are intended for the farmer to invest in equipment or whatever they need. I work 4x a year at that farm (either packing cheese or cleaning something) and I pay for my milk, cheese and yogurt. The stocks are a great way for the farmer to get some cash for investments without involving banks. We're about 100 people who own stock and do the quarterly shifts, but the main value is created by the farmers, their animals and the land.
Regarding my bank, any stock I buy from them enables them to do stuff with 7x the amount of money I gave them. E.g. if I own 10k in stock, they can use it to finance a 70k loan for someone.
For both, I can vote on important topics and future projects. For me this ensures my bank only invests sustainably and the milk and cheese I consume come from a farm that is nearby, organic and treats its animals well.
Forgive my stupid brain but can you make this distinction clearer for me? I find they're both kind of the same. You're extracting the profits which is the cut of the results
For the farm, the stocks are intended for the farmer to invest in equipment or whatever they need. I work 4x a year at that farm (either packing cheese or cleaning something) and I pay for my milk, cheese and yogurt. The stocks are a great way for the farmer to get some cash for investments without involving banks. We're about 100 people who own stock and do the quarterly shifts, but the main value is created by the farmers, their animals and the land. I'm not sure at which point these things become co-ops, but it seems similar.
Regarding my bank, any stock I buy from them enables them to do stuff with 7x the amount of money I gave them. E.g. if I own 10k in stock, they can use it to finance a 70k loan for someone, I get some dividens (~2% usually) on that. Now does a bank create value this way? Probably not, but it's better banking than the major names who have little transparency.
For both, I can vote on important topics and future projects. For me this ensures my bank only invests sustainably and the milk and cheese I consume come from a farm that is nearby, organic and treats its animals well.
edit: important to call out, these stocks are not publicly traded. Anyone can buy them from the bank/farm and the price per stock is set once or twice per year. So there is little speculating, and nobody can tweet about peace talks and commiting war crimes to drive the price up or down.
This is most definitely a joke website. Half of the links don't work. They are hosted on GitHub Pages. And these passages in FAQ:
Can I see the robots?
Our robot workforce operates in a secure facility in [LOCATION REDACTED]. Tours are available for Enterprise customers who sign our 47-page NDA.
And these reviews. “Definitely Real Corp”? “TaxOptimal Inc”? “Profit First LLC”?
AGPL is outright banned at Amazon which is not surprising considering their entire cloud business is built on serving a SaaS platform for any FOSS project imaginable.
How did you listen to the dialogue and not conclude it's satire?
"We get a lot of love letters and fan mail. They love us so much they're asking where we sleep at night so they can pay us a visit."
Gotta admire his ability to keep a straight face.
That said, it might be considered performance art more than satire (or maybe not mutually exclusive), since they apparently do actually accept payment for actual jobs. And if you trust anybody with a website like theirs, good luck with whatever code you receive from them.
In a way, I like to think about these [open source] maintainers kind of like 18th century weavers in North of England. Uh these weavers were kind of known as Luddites. They were specialty weavers. They built uh they wove amazing clothes. They were the best in the world at what they did. And then, British colonialism happened. They were replaced with machines. And these well-compensated weavers uh that lived on nice for farms in Yorkshire, they were forced to move to London and live in cramped housing and eat stale bread.
So, the future of open source maintainers is moving to London and eating stale bread.
The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textileworkers who were against the usage of certain types of automated machinery owing to their concerns relating to worker pay, child labour, working conditions and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]
42 Comments
Zombiepirate@lemmy.world · 138 pts · 40d
Is this serious? It reads like sarcasm.
Ledivin@lemmy.world · 131 pts · 40d
Definitely satire.
Or further down
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 52 pts · 40d
There's also the nice "trust us" under is it legal?
Its a parody on how all of the data was stolen in the first place, also I caught some subtle nids to how fucked the maintenance will be.
Wildmimic@anarchist.nexus · 3 pts · 40d
It feels like an art installation that actually can be used if someone really wanted to sabotage their business by creating a dependency on an unfixable mess. I truly believe there might be a substantial amount of business idiots out there who think all of this is a good idea lol
TheOctonaut@piefed.zip · 42 pts · 40d
The company name is literally Malus
On second thought people keep naming companies things like Palantir
Bruncvik@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 40d
I think this is just for fun. However, I did work for a company where we did everything in-house from scratch, down to our own font face, because we couldn't afford the legal costs associated with deciphering license agreements.
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 39d
That seems like a smart move (not)!
Gork@sopuli.xyz · 4 pts · 40d
I have no idea, their website doesn't seem to work very well on my phone, I can't bring up their About Us or Privacy Policy / Terms of Service for some reason either.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 40d
The Problem with Open Source™
lastweakness@lemmy.world · -1 pts · 40d
It's real satire, the worst kind. Or I guess you could call it self-aware trash? The whole site is "satire" and makes jokes about how this is bad for the ecosystem... But then, the product works. It accepts payments and delivers code in return.
nitroemdash@lemmy.wtf · 2 pts · 39d
Have you tested it?
lastweakness@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 39d
Not me, but a friend, yeah. And others online too.
Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 40d
It's real. It's very real, they're very transparent about how shady and horrible they are, and their entire process, and why it is technically not illegal, and how aware they are of all of it.
Edit: I got got. Honestly, in this modern landscape, can you blame me for thinking people bragging about how they're legally using AI to steal data were being satirical? The Onion notoriously can't keep up with real world news, cut me a break.
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 11 pts · 40d
Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 40d
Yeah, the down voting got the point across. No need to be a jerk and rub it in
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 40d
I mean, you were at like 2/2 when I posted that...
Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 39d
+1 for coming back!
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 52 pts · 40d
The stock market was once a great idea, provide a business some cash upfront so they can create value, get a cut of the result.
Now it's just about extracting value, capitalists are turning everything to shit.
njordomir@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 40d
Private owners and small businesses still get to have principles or choose to do things the right way. For all its faults, Steam is often talked about in this way. Corporations on the other hand have to view every square of toilet paper through the lens of profit and loss on the timescale of a single fiscal year or even a single quarter. I often wonder if it is even ethical to invest because doing so profitably seems to inherently feed this system of economic cannibalism.
We are incentivising companies to find the maximum spread between their expenses and their revenue at any cost and we are arming them with the tools and data to ruthlessly pursue this goal. You WILL be monetized. A scam is the most lucrative business of all because it only takes into account the benefit of one party. No wonder almost every brand name now days carries the reputation of a used tissue. They're just taking the whole pie because the middle class isn't needed anymore. It served its purpose by distracting Americans from some of the "communist" ideas happening at home and elsewhere in the world in the 70's. That's not needed anymore because they're projecting power through surveillance and social influencing instead.
I'd rather see everyone share and contribute to open-source code that moves all of humanity forward than private companies stealing other peoples work because they don't want to share credit.
SippyCup@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 39d
ahem
Create value, by taking it from whom?
The stock market was invented to make it less risky to plunder the everloving shit out of Non European countries.
It's always been about extracting value.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 39d
Value creation doesn't have to be a zero sum game, just because that's what the stock market has turned into doesn't mean it has to be the case.
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 39d
Maybe I just mean stocks in general, not the stock market or exchange. But stocks without public trading and speculating are still around and a good thing that can support creating value.
I own some stock in my bank and a farm.
For the farm, the stocks are intended for the farmer to invest in equipment or whatever they need. I work 4x a year at that farm (either packing cheese or cleaning something) and I pay for my milk, cheese and yogurt. The stocks are a great way for the farmer to get some cash for investments without involving banks. We're about 100 people who own stock and do the quarterly shifts, but the main value is created by the farmers, their animals and the land.
Regarding my bank, any stock I buy from them enables them to do stuff with 7x the amount of money I gave them. E.g. if I own 10k in stock, they can use it to finance a 70k loan for someone.
For both, I can vote on important topics and future projects. For me this ensures my bank only invests sustainably and the milk and cheese I consume come from a farm that is nearby, organic and treats its animals well.
pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 1 pts · 39d
Forgive my stupid brain but can you make this distinction clearer for me? I find they're both kind of the same. You're extracting the profits which is the cut of the results
db_null@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 39d
I own some stock in my bank and a farm.
For the farm, the stocks are intended for the farmer to invest in equipment or whatever they need. I work 4x a year at that farm (either packing cheese or cleaning something) and I pay for my milk, cheese and yogurt. The stocks are a great way for the farmer to get some cash for investments without involving banks. We're about 100 people who own stock and do the quarterly shifts, but the main value is created by the farmers, their animals and the land. I'm not sure at which point these things become co-ops, but it seems similar.
Regarding my bank, any stock I buy from them enables them to do stuff with 7x the amount of money I gave them. E.g. if I own 10k in stock, they can use it to finance a 70k loan for someone, I get some dividens (~2% usually) on that. Now does a bank create value this way? Probably not, but it's better banking than the major names who have little transparency.
For both, I can vote on important topics and future projects. For me this ensures my bank only invests sustainably and the milk and cheese I consume come from a farm that is nearby, organic and treats its animals well.
edit: important to call out, these stocks are not publicly traded. Anyone can buy them from the bank/farm and the price per stock is set once or twice per year. So there is little speculating, and nobody can tweet about peace talks and commiting war crimes to drive the price up or down.
nitroemdash@lemmy.wtf · 44 pts · 39d
This is most definitely a joke website. Half of the links don't work. They are hosted on GitHub Pages. And these passages in FAQ:
And these reviews. “Definitely Real Corp”? “TaxOptimal Inc”? “Profit First LLC”?
treesquid@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 39d
The site is called "Malus", literally bad or evil. They're not trying to hide the joke at all.
Hawk@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 39d
Isn't this that site that lets you pay to rewrite code to bypass any open source license?
While it looks like a joke, it apparently is not.
Jimmycrackcrack@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 39d
That's hilarious I was going to say it reads like a joke but not because I actually suspected it really was one.
Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 39d
Yes, it's a joke website, I saw it on another post. If I remember correctly, it sells AI coders.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip · 32 pts · 40d
I'm fairly certain the styling and code of that website is open source
Then again they probably just want to steal
Edit: it is satire
ieatpwns@lemmy.world · 26 pts · 40d
Is this satire?
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world · 21 pts · 40d
Has to be. No one can be unironically this dense. Right? Right?
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 40d
Right.
DrunkAnRoot@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 39d
Yes
mlg@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 39d
AGPL is outright banned at Amazon which is not surprising considering their entire cloud business is built on serving a SaaS platform for any FOSS project imaginable.
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br · 15 pts · 40d
Alberta Tech did an interview with Malus CEO. Not sure if satire, but the guy act like it isn't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=bpqFZBWcStU
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 43 pts · 40d
How did you listen to the dialogue and not conclude it's satire?
"We get a lot of love letters and fan mail. They love us so much they're asking where we sleep at night so they can pay us a visit."
Gotta admire his ability to keep a straight face.
That said, it might be considered performance art more than satire (or maybe not mutually exclusive), since they apparently do actually accept payment for actual jobs. And if you trust anybody with a website like theirs, good luck with whatever code you receive from them.
chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 5 pts · 40d
waz@feddit.uk · 5 pts · 40d
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textileworkers who were against the usage of certain types of automated machinery owing to their concerns relating to worker pay, child labour, working conditions and output quality. They often destroyed the machines in organised raids.[1][2] Members of the group referred to themselves as Luddites, self-described followers of "Ned Ludd", a legendary weaver whose name was used as a pseudonym in threatening letters to mill owners and government officials.[3]
AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 40d
Hairyfishnuts@feddit.online · 10 pts · 40d
Gork@sopuli.xyz · 13 pts · 40d
https://malus.sh/
scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech · 21 pts · 40d
Its satire bud.
davidagain@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 40d
Yes, but that's literally the source.