# Speedcubedb Shutting Down (It's Back Up and Running)



## Sub1Hour (Aug 1, 2021)

Unfortunatley in the last few minutes the website speedcubedb.com has went down. This message is stated if you try and access any page from the website

Aside from this message nothing is known about the shut down, I saw this on Cyoubx friends and thought it was important enough to put here


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## Waffles (Aug 1, 2021)

When you are in the middle of finding good algs


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## Sub1Hour (Aug 1, 2021)

__
https://www.reddit.com/r/Cubers/comments/ow0rax


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## kubesolver (Aug 2, 2021)

I think it's probabaly triggered by this attitude from [email protected]








Twitch


Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers.




www.twitch.tv







> Q: What do you think about speedcubedb?
> Phil:
> I am mean it's a database of cubing algs so it's very good.
> I think it's kind of scummy that some of the people marketing it
> ...



I am not sure i understand the whole background but here is my stance.

I think it's perfectly fine to advertise speedcubedb referencing to how much of an improvement it is to algdb.net because. It's simply so much better. Anyone who refers to algdb.net deserves to be referenced to speedcubedb. It's doing someone a favor a not being scummy.

Thecubicle seems like a fair business and I like what the're doing overall. But in my opinion in this instance it's Phil who is showing primitive tribalism


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## xyzzy (Aug 2, 2021)

> I think it's kind of scummy that some of the people marketing it
> deliberately target algdb
> as if they need to do it in order to like
> make people give them their attention.



Hypocrisy much? Nobody's been using AlgDb (as in, submitting and voting for algs) for a really long time because the v3 interface was horrible and nobody was reviewing the submitted algs – so in case anyone forgot, the pre-Cubicle-acquisition AlgDb had its own user login system, but v3 _required_ you to make a Cubicle account first. That seems pretty scummy too, if you ask me.

In all honesty, I have my own reservations about SCDB and Gil's other cubing websites, and what Phil says _does_ match my impression of how the websites were being advertised over the alternatives (edit: to clarify, when SCDB and CubeDB were first launched). I just feel like nobody on Cubicle's paycheck has any right to point this out without first acknowledging what they've done to AlgDb.

(edit edit: also want to mention I don't quite have my pitchfork out yet because this is really only one side of the story; I'm not connected enough to know exactly what happened, because clearly this can't be the full story)


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## Filipe Teixeira (Aug 2, 2021)

here it is opening fine
please don't make me have a heart attack!
EDIT: there is a message down there



Spoiler


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## Sub1Hour (Aug 2, 2021)

Filipe Teixeira said:


> here it is opening fine
> please don't make me have a heart attack!
> EDIT: there is a message down there
> 
> ...


I'm glad that Gil put the site back up. Hopefully on his own accord.

Side note, way to keep it civil over here, it got kind of heated on some Facebook groups so hopefully, this was his own decision and not some people pressuring him to keep a website up


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## qwr (Aug 3, 2021)

I have no idea what went down here but I am still suspicious of Gil not wanting to make a tool open source if he really does it for the benefit of the community


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## kubesolver (Aug 3, 2021)

qwr said:


> I have no idea what went down here but I am still suspicious of Gil not wanting to make a tool open source if he really does it for the benefit of the community



There are plenty of good reasons to not make software opensource. What he does is clearly to the benefit of the community and many (me included) have already benefited from it. So what if he wants to keep options of monetizing it open?

He can sell his time for decent $ so any time he devotes to his cubing software is basically a donation to the community. If you wanted to pay someone to build speedcubedb for you you'd have to spend $10k+.

Even The Cubicle is there for the benefit of the community! I am sure that Phil would make more money doing something else than selling twisty toys. Consider the difference to be his personal donation to the cubing community.

Let's be simply thankful for skilled people who instead of selling their time to the highest bidder do something for cubing instead of being "suspicious" that they don't do it solely for the community.


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## qwr (Aug 3, 2021)

Being open source is compatible with monetizing the project.


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 3, 2021)

qwr said:


> I have no idea what went down here but I am still suspicious of Gil not wanting to make a tool open source if he really does it for the benefit of the community



Then you are probably also suspicious of The Cubicle for not making the current running version of algdb.net open source. or thecubicletimer, or the old version of CubePb which both went defunct along with their respected database.

or maybe you are suspicious of Cubeast, Cubedesk, and other many, many applications, which their programmers spent the best of their time to give you - free of charge - the right to use the application.


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## qwr (Aug 3, 2021)

Gil.zussman said:


> Then you are probably also suspicious of The Cubicle for not making the current running version of algdb.net open source. or thecubicletimer, or the old version of CubePb which both went defunct along with their respected database.
> 
> or maybe you are suspicious of Cubeast, Cubedesk, and other many, many applications, which their programmers spent the best of their time to give you - free of charge - the right to use the application.



Welcome to the forums. You are correct. The reason algdb.net has stagnated is because people from the community are unable to contribute much needed fixes. I have not tried Cubeast but I do not like the closed source app model if that is what they are using. In contrast, cstimer and alg.cubing.net/twizzle have been able to continue development with help from the community. (CubeExplorer has its source published but iirc it is written in Pascal in a Windows-centric manner so I would rather do a rewrite.)


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## abunickabhi (Aug 4, 2021)

I hope there are less toxic people attacking such efforts, and more appreciation for open source and volunteer coding efforts in the cubing community.


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## Tabe (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> I have no idea what went down here but I am still suspicious of Gil not wanting to make a tool open source if he really does it for the benefit of the community


This is a horrible, entitled attitude to have.


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## xyzzy (Aug 4, 2021)

Tabe said:


> This is a horrible, entitled attitude to have.


Is it, really?

In the history of cubing, being released as free software is the norm, not the exception:
- The WCA website is free software. (GPL v3)
- TNoodle is free software. (GPL v3)
- csTimer is free software. (GPL v3)
- Twisty Timer is free software (GPL v3+)
- ksolve+ is free software. (GPL v2+)
- cubesolv.es is free software. (MIT)
- alg.cubing.net is free software. (MIT)
- Twizzle is free software. (GPL v3+)
- Cube Explorer is (mostly) free software. (GPL v3)
- cubers.io is free software. (GPL v3)
- All of the scramble generators I've written are free software. (mostly MIT)

Pointing out that someone is deviating from the norm is hardly "horrible" or "entitled".


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## Tabe (Aug 4, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> Is it, really?
> 
> In the history of cubing, being released as free software is the norm, not the exception:
> - The WCA website is free software. (GPL v3)
> ...


Of course it is.

Being upset that somebody is giving you something for free _but not in the exact way you want _is pretty much the definition of entitlement. What other companies or people have done with their software doesn't matter. And, last I looked, speedcubedb *IS *free. It's just not open source. 

Casting aspersions on that person's character (being "suspicious") based on *absolutely nothing* is horrible.

I stand by what I said.


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## Waffles (Aug 4, 2021)

Tabe said:


> Casting aspersions on that person's character (being "suspicious") based on *absolutely nothing* is horrible.


I have a tip - never play Among Us


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## Tabe (Aug 4, 2021)

Waffles said:


> I have a tip - never play Among Us


LOL.


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> Welcome to the forums. You are correct. The reason algdb.net has stagnated is because people from the community are unable to contribute much needed fixes. I have not tried Cubeast but I do not like the closed source app model if that is what they are using. In contrast, cstimer and alg.cubing.net/twizzle have been able to continue development with help from the community. (CubeExplorer has its source published but iirc it is written in Pascal in a Windows-centric manner so I would rather do a rewrite.)



Well, as someone who has been teaching computer science for the last 20 years, i can tell you there are many flaws in open source.

One of which, is that anyone is allowed to fork your existing code, overwrite ones name one, and publishing it as one's own while removing all credit. --- and it will be completely legal and according to the agreement of the GPL. There are many closed code application that i know that are using GPL-3 opensource code, yet there is no way one can prove that and do something about it. a prime example of it is Scrambow ( https://github.com/Owstin/scrambow ), which pretty much copied Lucas Garron's and other's hard, GPL3 code into a free to use MIT, which is now used in commercial software.

The other, is that you give up the ownership of your code to the free software foundation, so the code is not really yours. Its in the very few lines of the GPL licence.

also, your claim is a false one, because a year ago, Saransh Grover (WCA Vice Chair), Caleb Hoover (the creatore of lets cube) and James Chang (the cubicle co founder) have started an opensource algdb.net ( https://github.com/cubing/algdb ) which was abandoned just like the old algdb, and unlike your claimes - it was never picked up by the members of the community.

There are many reasons for many opensource projects to fail, some of which are memebers losing intersest, leaving or pulling to their own directions. the algdb.net project started about the same time i started working on speedcubedb.com, and my version was up in a matter of two weeks. so was cubedb.

At any case, as a computer science teacher, my view is that any decent computer science student can build such tools of its own - i have it as a part of my curriculum. Look at the myriad algorithm database websites since the day Jessica Fridrich released her own.

At any rate, it being the fruit of my hard work, while sharing it for free for people to use is my choice, since it's my intellectual property.

having someone *demanding* me to release the code, when there are so many other parralel software, such as the amazing Lucas Garron's cubing.js ( https://github.com/cubing/cubing.js ) is frankly, antagonizing.

it was for the same reason, that when the co owner of The Cubicle, James Chang, approached me and asked me to have my code open sourced and remove all reference to their competing company in a whole different project - i refused. His reaction was to tell me he (and probably his company) will refuse to interface with any of my other non-promoted projects such as speedcubedb and cubedb.

so yeah, go ahead, force me to work for free, give up my code, and keep up my motivation doing it.


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## xyzzy (Aug 4, 2021)

Tabe said:


> And, last I looked, speedcubedb *IS *free. It's just not open source.


I deliberately phrased my post in terms of "free software" because this discussion is meaningless if you're not at least aware of the distinction between "free" and "open source", or even those two terms and "free and open source". (You can look this up on Wikipedia yourself.)



Gil.zussman said:


> One of which, is that anyone is allowed to fork your existing code, overwrite ones name one, and publishing it as one's own while removing all credit. --- and it will be completely legal and according to the agreement of the GPL. There are many closed code application that i know that are using GPL-3 opensource code, yet there is no way one can prove that and do something about it. a prime example of it is Scrambow ( https://github.com/Owstin/scrambow ), which pretty much copied Lucas Garron's and other's hard, GPL3 code into a free to use MIT, which is now used in commercial software.


What? Have you _actually_ read the GPL? It grants zero provisions to arbitrarily relicense the code. The only permissible "relicensing", if you even want to call it that, is that the GPL is often used in a "version x or later" form, so the Free Software Foundation could, in theory, release a GPL v4 that's essentially public domain. They have not done that, they likely never will, and even if they did, whether it's enforceable is questionable. (There is, however, precedent to this: the FSF updated the GFDL at one point to allow for relicensing to CC-BY-SA, by Wikipedia's request. That is still a copyleft licence – not a "you can do whatever you want" licence.)

The fact that people do violate the GPL is not an implication that violating the GPL is legal in any sense. The original copyright holders do have the right to sue and revoke the distribution rights granted by the GPL. It's not like proving GPL violations is impossible either; FFmpeg used to do that, _a lot_.



Gil.zussman said:


> it was for the same reason, that when the co owner of The Cubicle, James Chang, approached me and asked me to have my code open sourced and remove all reference to their competing company in a whole different project - i refused. His reaction was to tell me he (and probably his company) will refuse to interface with any of my other non-promoted projects such as speedcubedb and cubedb.


Don't get me wrong, I think this is absolutely petty of James Chang. I too, would prefer if you'd released your projects as free software, but I'm not going to _demand_ that you do it (and in fact, I haven't; we've talked before and I never once brought this up directly to you because I don't think it's that important).


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 4, 2021)

> xyzzy said:
> 
> 
> > I deliberately phrased my post in terms of "free software" because this discussion is meaningless if you're not at least aware of the distinction between "free" and "open source", or even those two terms and "free and open source". (You can look this up on Wikipedia yourself.)


it is free to use. and i do gladly share my code under my conditions and even teach how to write it, as i did with many programmers in the community, and as many other programmers do.


> xyzzy said:
> 
> 
> > What? Have you _actually_ read the GPL? It grants zero provisions to arbitrarily relicense the code. The only permissible "relicensing", if you even want to call it that, is that the GPL is often used in a "version x or later" form, so the Free Software Foundation could, in theory, release a GPL v4 that's essentially public domain. They have not done that, they likely never will, and even if they did, whether it's enforceable is questionable. (There is, however, precedent to this: the FSF updated the GFDL at one point to allow for relicensing to CC-BY-SA, by Wikipedia's request. That is still a copyleft licence – not a "you can do whatever you want" licence.)


I have read it well, and i'm not interested any non programmer to add comments to the code and have oneself listed as one of the contributers or have the Cubicle legally fork it and publish it under their name (as they branded algdb) while removing mine as James suggested in a perfect legal sense.



> xyzzy said:
> 
> 
> > The fact that people do violate the GPL is not an implication that violating the GPL is legal in any sense. The original copyright holders do have the right to sue and revoke the distribution rights granted by the GPL. It's not like proving GPL violations is impossible either; FFmpeg used to do that, _a lot_.


not knowing my code was stolen without credit (as some well respected cube manufacturer has done, and caught them) or going into litigation, is something i prefer to avoid. so, another one of my reasons i prefer not to GPL-3 it.



> xyzzy said:
> 
> 
> > Don't get me wrong, I think this is absolutely petty of James Chang. I too, would prefer if you'd released your projects as free software, but I'm not going to _demand_ that you do it (and in fact, I haven't; we've talked before and I never once brought this up directly to you because I don't think it's that important).


well, exactly. i respect anyone's prerogative to choose their own licencing (GPL included). I just believe that forcing or implying malice to my intention will convince me doing so.


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## Lucas Garron (Aug 4, 2021)

Gil.zussman said:


> well, exactly. i respect anyone's prerogative to choose their own licencing (GPL included).



This is important!
Although I have strong views that GPL licensing has the best practical tradeoffs for the community, Gil has a right to release his software under his own license. I respect that and appreciate what he is trying to build.



xyzzy said:


> - ksolve+ is free software. (GPL v2+)





Gil.zussman said:


> a prime example of it is Scrambow ( https://github.com/Owstin/scrambow ), which pretty much copied Lucas Garron's and other's hard, GPL3 code into a free to use MIT, which is now used in commercial software.


Just to clear some things up, ksolve+ and scrambow are unlicensed. (Back from the day when we all freely built on each others' code without asking. This was never "okay" from a legal perspective, but the people involved knew each other and no one was trying to make any money off it.) There may be some copies of these libraries floating around with a supposed license attached, but I'm fairly sure that no one has contacted enough code authors for either of these to be safely used.

(Note that cubing.js will soon provide nearly all the functionality of both those. Part of the motivation for cubing.js was actually to make replacements for these tools available with with a clear license.)



Gil.zussman said:


> when there are so many other parralel software, such as the amazing Lucas Garron's cubing.js ( https://github.com/cubing/cubing.js )


While I appreciate the shout-out, I'd like to make clear that Tom Rokicki deserves just as much credit for working on cubing.js! :-D


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## CodingCuber (Aug 4, 2021)

I honestly find it incredible that there are people trying to suggest that Gil is not for the community considering the number of things he has done to better it. Not only that, but people continue to attack him for not making his sites open-source despite raising perfectly valid reasons. He's been doing this stuff for longer than most of you and I would like to think he has some idea what he is talking about. If you can create open-source alternatives as great as Gil's work, go ahead. I really think he deserves more respect than what he is getting.


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## Tabe (Aug 4, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> I deliberately phrased my post in terms of "free software" because this discussion is meaningless if you're not at least aware of the distinction between "free" and "open source", or even those two terms and "free and open source". (You can look this up on Wikipedia yourself.).


I'm well aware of the difference. I would, however, venture to guess that most people mean "no cost" when they say free as relates to software unless the term is specifically called out otherwise. Hence my reply.

And it's irrelevant anyway. It's Gil's software. He can do with it whatever he wants and is under absolutely no obligations to anyone in terms of giving away the source, making it "free software" or anything else. And to impugn his character or imply ill intent because he isn't doing that is just gross.


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## qwr (Aug 4, 2021)

xyzzy said:


> I deliberately phrased my post in terms of "free software" because this discussion is meaningless if you're not at least aware of the distinction between "free" and "open source", or even those two terms and "free and open source". (You can look this up on Wikipedia yourself.)


You're completely correct and I (too) was being sloppy with my language.



Gil.zussman said:


> Well, as someone who has been teaching computer science for the last 20 years, i can tell you there are many flaws in open source.


I am glad for you that you have been teaching CS for 20 years, but I am concerned that pretty much everything you said here about the GPL is wrong. I don't usually do this but I feel like I have to clear up the misunderstandings here. Here is a quick guide https://choosealicense.com/licenses/gpl-3.0/



Gil.zussman said:


> One of which, is that anyone is allowed to fork your existing code, overwrite ones name one, and publishing it as one's own while removing all credit. --- and it will be completely legal and according to the agreement of the GPL.


No. the GPLv3 requires a minimum of a copyright statement (which includes the author's name), a notice, and the full license. Also, when modifying GPLv3 code, you must clearly write out which modifications you have made. See https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/4582



Gil.zussman said:


> There are many closed code application that i know that are using GPL-3 opensource code, yet there is no way one can prove that and do something about it.


There have been many lawsuits over not following the GPL license, ex. the BusyBox lawsuits. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Legal_status



Gil.zussman said:


> a prime example of it is Scrambow ( https://github.com/Owstin/scrambow ), which pretty much copied Lucas Garron's and other's hard, GPL3 code into a free to use MIT, which is now used in commercial software.


I do not know the situation with this program but arbitrary relicensing is definitely not allowed. @xyzzy covers this.


Gil.zussman said:


> The other, is that you give up the ownership of your code to the free software foundation, so the code is not really yours. Its in the very few lines of the GPL licence.


This is not true either. You may be confused that the license is written by the FSF, but you retain all copyrights. https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/9694



Gil.zussman said:


> also, your claim is a false one, because a year ago, Saransh Grover (WCA Vice Chair), Caleb Hoover (the creatore of lets cube) and James Chang (the cubicle co founder) have started an opensource algdb.net ( https://github.com/cubing/algdb ) which was abandoned just like the old algdb, and unlike your claimes - it was never picked up by the members of the community.


I have never heard of this project and I believe if this was more publicized on the original algdb website then it would've taken off. But that is speculation.



Tabe said:


> Being upset that somebody is giving you something for free _but not in the exact way you want _is pretty much the definition of entitlement. What other companies or people have done with their software doesn't matter. And, last I looked, speedcubedb *IS *free. It's just not open source.


I make no demands on anyone. By the way, free is used in the sense of freedom here. Just be aware that cubing software has a strong history of free software (covered by @xyzzy), including all of the official WCA's websites and scramblers. You are free to license the software however you want. I stand by the statement that not making the software free is a deviation from the spirit of the cubing community's programs (to be clear, so was the original algdb.net).


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> You're completely correct and I (too) was being sloppy with my language.
> 
> 
> No. the GPLv3 requires a minimum of a copyright statement (which includes the author's name), a notice, and the full license. Also, when modifying GPLv3 code, you must clearly write out which modifications you have made. See https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/4582


yet *I* have no way to prove my code was used.



qwr said:


> There have been many lawsuits over not following the GPL license, ex. the BusyBox lawsuits. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License#Legal_status


and like i said, i don't have the time, will or money to go into litigation.



qwr said:


> This is not true either. You may be confused that the license is written by the FSF, but you retain all copyrights. https://opensource.stackexchange.com/a/9694


from the FSF themselves: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#AssignCopyright .


qwr said:


> I make no demands on anyone. By the way, free is used in the sense of freedom here. Just be aware that cubing software has a strong history of free software (covered by @xyzzy), including all of the official WCA's websites and scramblers. You are free to license the software however you want. I stand by the statement that not making the software free is a deviation from the spirit of the cubing community's programs (to be clear, so was the original algdb.net).


yes, but you did make rude, public assumptions about my and other well respected developers "intentions" that have made a conscientious decision not to follow the path which others, and specifically you, chose. instad of asking, trying to understand or even to "convince" me of your "righteous" ways. this is an antagonistic, argumentative and condescending behaviour.

you can just as well tell Chris Tran that not publicizing his hard earned work on formulating lubricants *should be* publicly publicized, then questioning his moral and intentions.

that's a toxic behaviour which should be condemned.


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## xyzzy (Aug 4, 2021)

Gil.zussman said:


> from the FSF themselves: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#AssignCopyright .


This applies specifically to projects spearheaded by the FSF that require copyright assignment, not other projects.


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## qwr (Aug 4, 2021)

Gil.zussman said:


> from the FSF themselves: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#AssignCopyright .


That is for contributing to FSF's projects.

I reserve my opinions on non-free software. To call my legitimate concerns about the benefits of software to the speedcubing community toxic is absurd. (Free software is inherently tied to the idea of software. Copyleft and the concept of intellectual property itself is a whole different debate.)


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## kubesolver (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> To call my legitimate concerns about the benefits of software to the speedcubing community toxic is absurd.



No, You don't have legitimate concerns.

If I get it right. The only concern of yours is that somehow having software closed-source makes it suspicious and questionable.

This is absurd.


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## CodingCuber (Aug 4, 2021)

kubesolver said:


> No, You don't have legitimate concerns.
> 
> If I get it right. The only concern of yours is that somehow having software closed-source makes it suspicious and questionable.
> 
> This is absurd.


This right here. Sums it up perfectly in one paragraph.


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## qwr (Aug 4, 2021)

kubesolver said:


> No, You don't have legitimate concerns.
> 
> If I get it right. The only concern of yours is that somehow having software closed-source makes it suspicious and questionable.
> 
> This is absurd.


The nature of closed-source software is antithetical to the user's freedoms. In today's day and age, there is absolutely no reason to use proprietary software if a reasonable free software alternative exists.


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> The nature of closed-source software is antithetical to the user's freedoms. In today's day and age, there is absolutely no reason to use proprietary software if a reasonable free software alternative exists.



while bad mouthing everyone who think and act otherwise.


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 4, 2021)

CodingCuber said:


> I respect your opinion, however you still haven’t answered how not making your hard work open source is suspicious.
> Also, do you have a link to any open-source projects you have made by chance?


why do you feed a troll that hijacked the thread to promote his own agenda?


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## qwr (Aug 4, 2021)

CodingCuber said:


> I respect your opinion, however you still haven’t answered how not making your hard work open source is suspicious.


Do you understand my previous reply?

Also I don't know how my projects are relevant, but since you asked: github.com/jxu


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## xyzzy (Aug 4, 2021)

I've spoken with Gil privately, and my 2 microcents:

I also know what Gil's concerns were when he decided to not make the source public, and while I'm generally pro-free software, I can at least sympathise with those concerns. (Plus: Cubicle being hypocritical about one of Gil's sites being done with SCS and thereby refusing to cooperate, as if they didn't slap their own logo over AlgDb and CubePB while letting those sites rot. I _still_ only have one side of the picture, but that side now paints TC in an extremely bad light and it seems like nobody at TC is interested in defending their honour anyway.)

The topic of whether we should try to steer the cubing community's software projects towards free software (like the examples I listed before) versus proprietary software (SCDB, CubeDesk, etc.) is an important topic to discuss, but perhaps not the right one to discuss _now_ while everyone is on edge and not really listening to each other.


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## kubesolver (Aug 4, 2021)

Can we at least agree that you can be a good, honest, helpful person while not willing to share your code at the same time?


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## DuckubingCuber347 (Aug 4, 2021)

Well I missed a very big argument. I'm not going to go to in depth in my little post but I would like to say to @qwr that you have a horrible attitude and I have lost a ton of respect. Gil can do whatever he wants with his time and resources, to say he is required to make it "open-source" or "free-source" is completely contorted. He is completely in control, from what I see your argument is basically "Well, that's what others have done", "It's the whole spirit of cubing to make your sources FREE!!". No, if he doesn't want to do this you can ask him civil questions and not make meaningless accusations, or, if you want to have an argument about this you can have a private conversation (yes, you have that ability on SS you've been here longer than I, you should know this) and discuss it with him instead of turning a good thread into a toxic place, (as much as you don't want to be called that, it's true) which Sub1Hour had just called "civil".

I don't want to get carried away so I'll just make it clear. Knock it off. It's Gil's choice and if you want to whine about and embarrass yourself in a baseless argument than you should take the advice of others and create your own algorithm database and if you still think that Gil is incorrect and arrogant and doesn't actually care, then I want you to provide me a reason why you can't create you own.


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## Mike Hughey (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> The nature of closed-source software is antithetical to the user's freedoms. In today's day and age, there is absolutely no reason to use proprietary software if a reasonable free software alternative exists.


False. There is a reason: Someone has developed proprietary software that is usefully better than the corresponding free software alternative (even if the free software is a "reasonable alternative", it is not quite as good), and that person is afraid of having their software illegally stolen if it becomes open source.

This is an extremely valid reason to not produce open source code today. Illegal stealing of open source happens all the time, and litigation to deal with it is usually not practical. When making the choice to make something open source, one has to weigh whether or not this is important. That decision should be respected, no matter what decision the person makes.


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## Tabe (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> I make no demands on anyone.


No, you just say "I am suspicious of [them]" if they don't. That's essentially a demand. "Make it open source exactly how I want or I'll publicly impugn your character" - since that's exactly what happened here. Surely you must see just how wrong that is.


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## BenChristman1 (Aug 4, 2021)

I’m not going to get into the debate about what I think is right or wrong, but I just want to thank @Gil.zussman for opening up SCDB again. While he may not be making any money off of it (aside from donations, obviously), it will be able to be used by so many more people this way. Thanks again for opening it back up, and for creating it in the first place, Gil!


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## Christopher Mowla (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> The nature of closed-source software is antithetical to the user's freedoms. In today's day and age, there is absolutely no reason to use proprietary software if a reasonable free software alternative exists.



If they don't want to make money, they still may want to be the first to release an improvement to their work. It's their right to keep control of the history (the sequence of events of the impact it made, its improvements and advances, etc.) of their own project. They may release the entire source code when the project is entirely complete . . . who knows, but it should not be *demanded* that they do so as soon as they release a trial version so that others who were not as clever and/or are envious can have a piece of the pie _that was not offered to them_.

And regarding money. Money doesn't grow on trees . . . and considering the fact that in the world that we actually live in, people make a killing by: cheating people, persuading (and even brain washing) people into buying things that they don't need, etc. Why are you so against people who actually create something that the people are asking for/need *that you not hesitant at all but to try to destroy their reputation* simply because they insist on doing what they want with *their own stuff*?

And it's a big possibility that people choose to release a trial version of their software for free to get feedback from a small sample size so that they can make a better version of it in the future to sell to a larger sample size. If they release their source code too, that will put others on the same playing field as them to sell the product. How is it fair that those who are given something equally deserve to make money off of what they got from someone else as the person who gave it to them? I'm not following.




TheCubingCuber347 said:


> I don't want to get carried away so I'll just make it clear. Knock it off. It's Gils choice and if you want to whine about and embarrass yourself in a baseless argument than you should take the advice of others and create your own algorithm database and if you still think that Gil is incorrect and arrogant and doesn't actually care, than I want you to provide me a reason why you can't create you own.



Unfortunately a lot of people in the history of this community think/thought this way. Not just about software, but about every aspect of cubing. So he is not alone in this ideology of how the world should work. At best, they would have reacted with something like, "If you don't want to give it to us for free and detach your name from it, why did you mention it to us at all?!"

I think if any of these cubers would actually invent something truly original, they would have more self-respect (and respect for other inventors wishes, hopes, *and choices*).


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## qwr (Aug 4, 2021)

Tabe said:


> No, you just say "I am suspicious of [them]" if they don't. That's essentially a demand. "Make it open source exactly how I want or I'll publicly impugn your character" - since that's exactly what happened here. Surely you must see just how wrong that is.


Calling someone suspicious (or sus) is not by any stretch a demand on someone. Demanding would be if I messaged him "Make it free software NOW!!" Any coder who wants their program to have a maximal benefit for the community: to share and modify the program, like the WCA does, and to guarantee the software respects the freedom of its users like not spying, censoring, restricting usage, will voluntarily make it free software.


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## xyzzy (Aug 4, 2021)

I've been burning my weirdness points incredibly rapidly as of late, so this is _maybe_ not the best choice of hill to die on, but anyhow:



TheCubingCuber347 said:


> I don't want to get carried away so I'll just make it clear. Knock it off. It's Gils choice and if you want to whine about and embarrass yourself in a baseless argument than you should take the advice of others and create your own algorithm database and if you still think that Gil is incorrect and arrogant and doesn't actually care, than I want you to provide me a reason why you can't create you own.


I think this is a _terrible_ argument. "If you don't like it, why don't you do better?"

I've been on various sides of this argument before: I've said this to other people (this very post is hypocritical, I'll admit), I've had other people say this to me (and sometimes I act on it), and now I'm decrying the entire line of argument altogether. It's an argument that can completely shut out any and all criticism. Hypothetically, if a product is mostly fantastic but has one flaw, I point the flaw, then the product's defenders come out in droves all pulling this argument. Nothing improves, nothing gets better, everyone gets upset (except for the odd few who thrive on conflict).

One way to do better is to build off of the existing product. Keep everything as it is, except fix that one flaw. (Problem: _we cannot do this with proprietary content_. Or… we can, but not legally.)

The other way is to start from scratch. Obviously, this is a lot of effort. A lot more effort than it takes to say "why don't you do better", in fact.



Spoiler: more tl;dr



(There's a secondary point to be made here in that an alg database specifically derives its value from having a lot of users. Centralisation is what makes it useful; a competing alg database is just not going to get the eyeballs it needs to surpass the existing one, unless the existing one is garbage or unusable in some way. (cough cough AlgDb))

((And then that brings me to my tertiary point, which I hinted at in my first post here without spelling it out. When SCDB was launched, it was heavily advertised as being a successor to AlgDb that fixes all of its flaws. No more outdated algs! Automated alg review! Etc. Some of those turned out to be true, and fair enough. Some are… questionable. The problem with AlgDb's voting system is twofold. Firstly, it imported the votes from the old AlgDb, but it's no longer possible to log in to the old accounts, so it's also impossible to change votes on those algs. Secondly, most of the votes were from many years ago, and alg preferences have changed somewhat. SCDB obviously doesn't suffer from the first problem – it imported algs from AlgDb, but not their vote counts. The second problem is _not_ truly fixed by SCDB. It merely delayed its onset. The voting system is a bit more fine-grained, since you can vote for 2H/OH/bigcube algs separately rip feet, but still essentially the same. Unless the voting system changes, old votes will linger on the site until eternity. Already there are people complaining that their favourite XXX alg somehow isn't at the top despite being "objectively optimal". I'm _not_ saying this is an easy problem to solve! It just strikes me as a clear example of false advertising, when you claim to have solved a problem but in reality you just swept it under the rug.))



---
(not really related to above reply except for burning even more weirdness points)

I also want to mention that Gil's early responses here contained flagrantly misleading information about free / open source licences, and both I and @qwr were trying to clear the air. Is _that_ toxicity? I'll burn bridges and destroy friendships if I have to, to point out that someone is objectively wrong. (There _is_ some leeway in how licences can be interpreted in a court of law, but the extent to which free licences were being misrepresented is well beyond the scope of any reasonable interpretation.)

If we're starting from the viewpoint that proprietary software is inherently unethical (qwr and I subscribe to this, apparently), then pointing out that someone is doing this seems… perfectly fair? This is, of course, subjective (I'm a moral relativist, sue me), and I don't think merely doing a few "unethical" things makes someone a terrible irredeemable person anyway. Sometimes there are necessary evils. Sometimes it's just easier. There are plenty of valid (and sometimes not-so-valid) excuses!

In the grand scheme, there are far worse things a person can do than "release proprietary software", and that's why I never harped on this point.

---

edit to add:
I also want to say I'm grateful that Gil decided to make SCDB at all! Like I before: I'd prefer it was open, but even without being open it has been a greatly valuable resource. To the community, and to me personally.

Gil has access to my list of 30 things I _don't_ like about SCDB. That list wouldn't be nearly as long if I wasn't also a happy user of SCDB outside of those gripes. I realise I haven't publicly said how much I appreciate it, so here it is.


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 4, 2021)

qwr said:


> Calling someone suspicious (or sus) is not by any stretch a demand on someone. Demanding would be if I messaged him "Make it free software NOW!!" Any coder who wants their program to have a maximal benefit for the community: to share and modify the program, like the WCA does, and to guarantee the software respects the freedom of its users like not spying, censoring, restricting usage, will voluntarily make it free software.


Please stop it. I'm not the first nor the last to tell you.

I don't agree with your views and antagonistic methods of "convincing" me of your moral superiority, while trying to convince others i'm wrong.

Quoting you - any forum member that wishes to respect other forum members and software creators - 


*will respect the absolute, complete, undeniable right to do wtf they wish to do with their own property and hard work.*


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## SlowerCuber (Aug 5, 2021)

Gil.zussman said:


> it was for the same reason, that when the co owner of The Cubicle, James Chang, approached me and asked me to have my code open sourced and remove all reference to their competing company in a whole different project - i refused. His reaction was to tell me he (and probably his company) will refuse to interface with any of my other non-promoted projects such as speedcubedb and cubedb.
> 
> so yeah, go ahead, force me to work for free, give up my code, and keep up my motivation doing it.


When you say James Chang (TheCubicle) asked you to open-source *your code*, do you mean speedcubestats.com? I'm a bit confused, I mean, that's powered by SCS and made by you, right? So why does James want to ask for open source, to the extent of threatening?

Also, you make monkeyleague.org for them (which I suppose it's sponsored by TheCubicle)

I think I must either misunderstood something, or the request/threatening is beyond my understanding


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## Gil.zussman (Aug 5, 2021)

SlowerCuber said:


> When you say James Chang (TheCubicle) asked you to open-source *your code*, do you mean speedcubestats.com? I'm a bit confused, I mean, that's powered by SCS and made by you, right? So why does James want to ask for open source, to the extent of threatening?
> 
> Also, you make monkeyleague.org for them (which I suppose it's sponsored by TheCubicle)
> 
> I think I must either misunderstood something, or the request/threatening is beyond my understanding


All true. And while I did make monkeyleague.org free of charge, just to hear some cubicle sponsorees are removing cubedb.net and speedcubedb.com links because "the cubicle will not like it".


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## Tabe (Aug 5, 2021)

qwr said:


> Calling someone suspicious (or sus) is not by any stretch a demand on someone. Demanding would be if I messaged him "Make it free software NOW!!" Any coder who wants their program to have a maximal benefit for the community: to share and modify the program, like the WCA does, and to guarantee the software respects the freedom of its users like not spying, censoring, restricting usage, will voluntarily make it free software.


"if you don't do what I want with your software, I will impugn your character without any basis for doing so"

That's literally what you're saying yet you don't see that as a demand? Alrighty then.


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