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Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

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Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#71

Post by CyberShadow »

gizdan wrote: post #30
CyberShadow wrote: post #8

The account which did the change has this description: > This is the open source management service account used for performing key GitHub operations on behalf of Microsoft employees and users. Combined with the nonsense README change, this looks like a bot mis-use accident. Edit: to clarify, in no way am I saying that this is a "honest mistake" which does not deserve scrutiny.

Which is fine, and surely an honest mistake. Automation is great, but the way I see it is, how many other projects have been forked and automatically re-licensed, and then profited from without proper attribution? An accident still needs to be flagged, and still needs to be corrected. They also need to be learned from and avoided in the future.

> An accident still needs to be flagged, and still needs to be corrected.

Yes. Additionally, the way such actions are performed is not great because the mechanism used does not provide any way to provide feedback - if the change was done by a user account, then they would have received notifications about the comments posted under the commit, but the ones received by the service account probably go nowhere.

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#72

Post by 0x0 »

judge2020 wrote: post #42
matt123456789 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but this is still illegal, right?

Since MIT has this line: > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. MS would be in the wrong to redistribute this code without the notice that includes '(c) 2020 LesnyRumcajs' - however, just changing the line doesn't constitute copyright infringement or fraud if MS reverses the change and/or simply appends the original MIT license…

The "5 commits ahead" are literally only replacing the license and the readmes.

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#73

Post by [deleted] »

smorgusofborg wrote: post #63
37ef_ced3 wrote: post #44

The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. In return, you receive hosting from GitHub. The writing is on the wall. You MUST host your own code on a stand-alone website. Here is an example. This Go program (a compiler) generates and serves its own website: https://NN-512.com It runs on a Linode shared CPU cloud instance that costs $5 per month: h…

How does your license prevent someone redistributing source code over GitHub? What does copilot claim as far as licensing rights beyond fair use? You may be practically limiting copilots use of your code but I don't see any licensing difference if Microsoft hosts Copyright code or scrapes copyright code.

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#74

Post by vegetablepotpie »

brisad wrote: post #37

Since they also removed a full stop at the end... What is the point of using all caps? For me it makes legal texts like these really annoying to read. I'm not a native English speaker, is that really correct English writing? Aren't there clear rules when to use capitalization? Like, at the beginning of sentences. Feels like they are abusing the language. Can they just lower case the paragraphs, to make things more co…

Apparently it comes from commercial codes from the ‘50s, which says that important text must be conspicuous [1]

Conspicuous could mean all caps, contrasting text, or different colors. My guess is that CAPITALIZATION was used because most typewriters at the time could do caps, whereas doing different font sizes, colors, bold would have required a special expensive machine. When technology evolved, lawyers being process oriented creatures, stuck with all caps because it was the way things were always done, and therefore safe to do.

[1] https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/all-caps-legal-agreements/

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#75

Post by wongarsu »

wellthisisgreat wrote: post #46
37ef_ced3 wrote: post #44

The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. In return, you receive hosting from GitHub. The writing is on the wall. You MUST host your own code on a stand-alone website. Here is an example. This Go program (a compiler) generates and serves its own website: https://NN-512.com It runs on a Linode shared CPU cloud instance that costs $5 per month: h…

Is the copilot thing true for paid accounts as well?

afaik copilot is trained on all public repositories. Paid/free doesn't play into it

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#76

Post by phendrenad2 »

notquitehuman wrote: post #64
phendrenad2 wrote: post #2

Seems like it's probably a mistake, did you try to contact them? https://opensource.microsoft.com/ https://twitter.com/OpenAtMicrosoft

Contacting Microsoft is always a mistake. They don’t want to hear from anyone and their process reflects this.

1) What's your source for that assertion

2) Assuming it's even true, what should this person do instead?

3) What do you think the outcome would be if this person did contact Microsoft? Since it's a mistake, I assume something bad?

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#77

Post by peter_retief »

37ef_ced3 wrote: post #44

The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. In return, you receive hosting from GitHub. The writing is on the wall. You MUST host your own code on a stand-alone website. Here is an example. This Go program (a compiler) generates and serves its own website: https://NN-512.com It runs on a Linode shared CPU cloud instance that costs $5 per month: h…

This seems to be the new reality. Sad we get fooled over and over by the same companies.

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#78

Post by matt123456789 »

judge2020 wrote: post #42
matt123456789 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, but this is still illegal, right?

Since MIT has this line: > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. MS would be in the wrong to redistribute this code without the notice that includes '(c) 2020 LesnyRumcajs' - however, just changing the line doesn't constitute copyright infringement or fraud if MS reverses the change and/or simply appends the original MIT license…

I see. Thank you for the explanation.

Re: Microsoft forked MIT licensed repo and changed the copyright [fixed]

#80

Post by nerdponx »

999900000999 wrote: post #52
37ef_ced3 wrote: post #44

The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. In return, you receive hosting from GitHub. The writing is on the wall. You MUST host your own code on a stand-alone website. Here is an example. This Go program (a compiler) generates and serves its own website: https://NN-512.com It runs on a Linode shared CPU cloud instance that costs $5 per month: h…

To be honest, can't humans go through various open source repositories and copy the bits they like? If you don't like that,don't release your code as open source. I'm not going to host my open source projects on my own website. That's just hard, it's much more difficult to get people to check it out if it's on Broblog.net I personally don't believe extremely short code snippets, like the ones copilot tends to copy ar…

This is the same fallacy behind the argument that we shouldn't care about privacy, because it's always been possible to track and surveil individuals.
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