RE: I discovered something unpleasant today: Steem's license
If steemit inc goes out of business surely they would open source it no?
To me the main interrogation I have is if steem is allowed to split into 2 chains? I have asked this question multiples times and been ignored so far.
If the license prevents from doing this, then it means witnesses can only refuse to upgrade but can't upgrades with code that isn't steemit,inc. I'm not sure if this is really problematic, because the devs team would be wasting their time producing code that people don't want as it would always be rejected by witnesses.
I think the reason for this license is to prevent competition which is good in my book, because if the code becomes open source you can be certain someone will build something more fair and get a lot more support. So this license kinda encourage everyone to solve issue on this blockchain.
I suppose the license could be removed at a later date when steem has reached critical mass. The way i see it that steem will become more and more decentralized and steemit inc might not even exist 5-10 years from now.
Steem have a solid base where effective governance tools can be built, that's what I would like to see in the future. ( community polls, budget for developers, budget for new account creation, everything can be decentralized..)
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.
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.