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RE: I discovered something unpleasant today: Steem's license
If steemit inc goes out of business surely they would open source it no?
Maybe they would...maybe they wouldn't. Maybe they would sell the IP to someone else. I don't know. I don't trust people or companies. I trust code and licenses.
I think the reason for this license is to prevent competition which is good in my book
Respectfully, I disagree. Competition is good and desirable, and an important part of the free market of ideas.
The decision of which fork to use should be made by the top 19 witnesses that everyone votes for. But this isn't the case at all. It is solely up to Steemit Inc, due to that license clause. (Yes I know they have a ton of SP to vote for witness as well, but that doesn't bother me, the license does.)
The way I read it, that's the case now - the chain is the one defined by the witnesses, voted for by stakeholders. That's the chain the software is for. That doesn't require any approval or authorization from Steemit.
The clause is for clones/altcoins using the same codebase: it could cause tremendous confusion (especially considering that the blue steem logo up there in the top left is effectively unrestricted for use) if someone made a completely unrelated chain using the codebase and tried to pass it off as affiliated with this community of STEEM stakeholders in some way.
I am all for allowing steem to split but allowing anyone to create a new coin is a good way to devalue your investment.
I would have not invested in steem without this license, way too risky.
I don't know if they could make this distinction in the license but it would be good I guess.