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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]

#111
post #13

So you can't do that? I do it all the time when I fork something.

Free or open source licenses aren’t a lack of copyright. They are an exercise of copyright. All of that code that you didn’t write is still copyrighted by their original authors. You simply have permission to use it under the criteria outlined in the license.

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

#112

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…

> The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. Wrong. Lets say a GPL project is not hosted on GitHub officially. I can easily setup a mirror for it though on GitHub as the GPL doesn't prevent me from doing it... Point is that anyone can put my work on GitHub, even if I don't want to.Assuming the project is under a free license though.

How does that make what 37ef_ced3 said wrong? I’m not following your logic.

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

#113
post #26
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t matter that it was an accident; it’s still a serious issue that needs to be corrected and deserves an upvote. It’s also quite curious, and I appreciate hearing about the incident. Incidents don’t need to be malicious to be newsworthy or intriguing.

Quoted post unavailable.

You wouldn't believe how long "harmless mistakes" are maintained without correction, as long as they're benefiting a big company.

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

#114
post #25
post #13

So you can't do that? I do it all the time when I fork something.

Correct. You don’t own the code just because you forked it. The original copyright holders retain ownership, and you must abide by their license. You can’t swap out the license unless they explicitly allow you to do so.

That’s not true. You can change the license if the license allows you to. It’s copyright you can’t change unless the author assigns the copyright to you.

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. Wrong. Lets say a GPL project is not hosted on GitHub officially. I can easily setup a mirror for it though on GitHub as the GPL doesn't prevent me from doing it... Point is that anyone can put my work on GitHub, even if I don't want to.Assuming the project is under a free license though.

Yes, you can "donate" someone else's code, knowing Microsoft will violate a use-with-attribution license. You can do it, but it's WRONG. Copilot is trained on public GitHub repositories of any license: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot#Technology We must all stop using GitHub.

My team has code, MIT and GPL, on GitHub. We know the risk of this kind of theft. We remain on GitHub for the discoverability. It's not so absolute.

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

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The larger issue is that anyone using Github is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. I think this can only be valid of Github's terms of use clearly specify that or the chosen license allows it. I actually see copilot benefiting GPL projects: suppose a programmer uses copilot to develop a proprietary software and copilot regurgitates GPL'ed code: now the proprietary software is a deri…

Unless copilot serves as a legally effective "laundering" of gpl code. Which sounds silly, but we're now in a situation where that outcome is super desirable to GitHub/Microsoft. Another potential outcome is that so many projects could now end up unknowingly using gpl code that enforcement becomes an impractical whack-a-mole, far more so than today. Being told to rework or relicense your project because of copiloted…

> Unless copilot serves as a legally effective "laundering" of gpl code.

It's quite interesting how it seems to have come full circle, at least according to this stackoverflow comment about Stallman releasing a paper in 1992 on how to effectively launder AT&T code via textual changes (I have no idea if he did, I just remembered the comment): https://unix.stackexchange.com/a/591221

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

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The larger issue is that anyone using GitHub is donating their work for re-use without attribution through Copilot. Wrong. Lets say a GPL project is not hosted on GitHub officially. I can easily setup a mirror for it though on GitHub as the GPL doesn't prevent me from doing it... Point is that anyone can put my work on GitHub, even if I don't want to.Assuming the project is under a free license though.

Yes, you can "donate" someone else's code, knowing Microsoft will violate a use-with-attribution license. You can do it, but it's WRONG. Copilot is trained on public GitHub repositories of any license: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub_Copilot#Technology We must all stop using GitHub.

I wonder what kind of language you would need to add to your license in order to explicitly forbid the ingestion of your code by Copilot and/or like projects.

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

#118
post #104
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it isn’t in compliance with the terms of many popular licenses to create derivative works without attribution. Therefore the only possible claim Microsoft have to do so is via terms and conditions, which would not apply to code hosted on a stand-alone website. It might be time for popular licenses to update themselves for this new-found threat.

What happens when some random person uploads your code (acquired from your website) to GitHub?

It depends on how that code is licensed. Possibly the random person gets served with a summons. Possibly nothing.

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

#119

Someone has pushed a button and it's run the equivalent of cookiecutter on the repo. Original author could send a DMCA, or they could simply enjoy Christmas and assume a ticket will undo this sometime in January.

This, the reason why we have the DMCA is to protect copyright holders, now the copyright holders should exercise their right.

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

#120
post #83

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

A 'mistake' they are actually doing since a long time now. Here is the cups equivalent with a license change from apache to mit for the CUPS system. https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/ad69bcc78bdea3fea3f...

Why the scare quotes around mistake? Are you implying that it's intentional? Or negligence? It seems like nobody noticed the CUPS license change until now, so it's irrelevant, right?
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