But the author had the opportunity to specify the behaviour that he felt was courteous enough. Some people do not care about shout-outs, and those people do not include attribution clauses in their code licenses.
I also did not mean "fault" in the legal sense, but rather in the sense of courtesy. It is not a faux pas to comply neatly with the terms of a public contract. What you're suggesting is that Amazon erred in not mentioning the author, but the fact that is visible to everyone in the license is that the author does not care about attribution.
I don't like the insinuation that a license can be non-exhaustive in its conditions for the "correct" use of open-source software. You shouldn't run the risk of offending an author by violating some tacit, contradictory rule.
Do you also dislike interacting with people, seeing how there's no such thing as an exhaustive list of things to do and not to do?
This is not even an analogy, it's what is being discussed. AWS didn't do anything illegal with regards to their usage of open-source, but we live in a society, and we do have innumerable tacit rules. One of them is that you should give credit to where credit is due.
Software licensing already breaks many tacit rules that people normally take for granted. It's rude to copy someone else's creation without asking first - but if they license their code in a way that allows for copies to be created, it is no longer rude to copy that code without permission.
It is also rude to sell someone else's work without permission. But if they choose a software license without a non-commercial clause, it is no longer rude: and this implies that the absence of a feature in a license is a kind of approval of its opposite.
If you choose a license without an attribution clause in it, you are admitting, publicly, that you do not care about attribution - not that you require, nor that you forbid it, just that you are ambivalent. If somebody goes on to use your code without attribution, you are wrong to then point out that they have been "rude" to you, because you have already declared your indifference.
I'm not suggesting that unwritten rules are bad. I'm suggesting that trying to introduce unwritten rules to a system where written rules (i.e. licenses) already exist is a bad thing. Software licensing already sits at the intersection of legal and social obligations, because attribution is a feature with essentially no legal impact; treating a software license as a social contract is not a mistake.
IDK... lets remember that this is a low stakes game. At worst, someone is now cross with aws product people.
Also, it's not like we're talking about arcane pleasantries that no one could have anticipated. Say JKRR opens Harry Potter, copyleft or something. You record an audio version and sell it with great success. Is it not obviously courteous to mention her in some way?
It's even moreso, if you are aws, and JKR is just a regular author.
It's not like anyone who uses a library is expected to perform a ritual dance. It's common sense basics and if you get it wrong nothing happens. Doesn't seem like a lot to ask.
> But the author had the opportunity to specify the behaviour that he felt was courteous enough.
So I'm free to treat you like an absolutely piece of shit, be a raging asshole at you, and you're going to defend my horrendous treatment of you just because legally I'm allowed to and you failed to make a contract with me saying I have to be nice in excruciating detail that's legally enforceable?
I also did not mean "fault" in the legal sense, but rather in the sense of courtesy. It is not a faux pas to comply neatly with the terms of a public contract. What you're suggesting is that Amazon erred in not mentioning the author, but the fact that is visible to everyone in the license is that the author does not care about attribution.
I don't like the insinuation that a license can be non-exhaustive in its conditions for the "correct" use of open-source software. You shouldn't run the risk of offending an author by violating some tacit, contradictory rule.