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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]

#261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're attached to your copyright: 0-clause BSD is a thing that exists[0]. Toybox uses it. If you want to throw your copyright out the window: The commonly accepted solution seems to be CC-0[1], which tries very hard to disclaim rights and limit liability in as many jurisdictions as possible, complete with a fallback license grant for failed public domain dedications. Because CC-0 makes some people uncomfortable d…

I wondered why more FOSS projects aren't using CC0 instead of "permissive" licenses like MIT, considering a lot of folks who work in FOSS are against copyright/software patents system in general, and most of them don't really seem to care about attribution. People who release code under MIT not only won't/can't take legal action but they probably won't even bother writing an email to the person who they believe viola…

Because permissive licenses promote proprietary use cases and that's not what FOSS movement aims to achieve.

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

#262
post #178

The attitude in these threads always boggles my mind. When YOU, your teammates or someone else you know makes a mistake, then it’s just a mistake. But when someone at Microsoft makes a mistake it’s because Microsoft is evil and by extension so is the person who offended. “It’s a big company”, you say. They should have a process! And I’m sad to say, they do/will have a process exactly because of this attitude. Then, e…

It is reasonable to have different expectations from large corporations with enormous resources than you would have for an independent developer.

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

#263
post #178

The attitude in these threads always boggles my mind. When YOU, your teammates or someone else you know makes a mistake, then it’s just a mistake. But when someone at Microsoft makes a mistake it’s because Microsoft is evil and by extension so is the person who offended. “It’s a big company”, you say. They should have a process! And I’m sad to say, they do/will have a process exactly because of this attitude. Then, e…

In my opinion, this gets a strong reaction because: 1. They made similar mistakes in the past. 2. They didn't fix it for half a year. 3. They can expect strong financial benefits from making these mistakes. 4. They've recently burned a lot of goodwill by deliberately infringing licenses on a large scale when they trained Copilot. 5. They could have easily prevented this kind of mistakes. My summary would be that Micr…

also, never forget CP/M: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ms-dos-examined-for-thef/

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

#264
post #121

So sure, this is far from a good look. But the verdict is still out on if it is an unfortunate mistake or malicious. It's far from the first time I see this kind of reaction and, IMO, rather than everyone spending time on piling on the flamewar, how about opening the door for MS to set this straight and do the right thing? Assume good faith even if you personally don't sincerely believe it? Give them an easy way to s…

Another aspect of this: Rejecting such a change, or indefinitely leaving it hanging as open, is a much worse look than simply ignoring all the complaints (which is already bad enough but has more plausible deniability). Providing a ready-to-merge PR is effectively pushing them to take a public stance.

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

#265
post #178

The attitude in these threads always boggles my mind. When YOU, your teammates or someone else you know makes a mistake, then it’s just a mistake. But when someone at Microsoft makes a mistake it’s because Microsoft is evil and by extension so is the person who offended. “It’s a big company”, you say. They should have a process! And I’m sad to say, they do/will have a process exactly because of this attitude. Then, e…

You should see how HN would react if Google has done anything remotely close to it. If it was Google your comment would be downvoted to oblivion instead of being the top comment. Not to mention you'd be disparaged for protecting your employer.

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

#266
post #178

The attitude in these threads always boggles my mind. When YOU, your teammates or someone else you know makes a mistake, then it’s just a mistake. But when someone at Microsoft makes a mistake it’s because Microsoft is evil and by extension so is the person who offended. “It’s a big company”, you say. They should have a process! And I’m sad to say, they do/will have a process exactly because of this attitude. Then, e…

I'm just curious, is Microsoft actually in violation of the MIT license here? All future changes to this repo are copyright Microsoft, so Microsoft's copyright should be in the statement. Arguably there should be an additional statement indicating that LesnyRumcajs holds copyright to bits of code that Microsoft hasn't changed. But (1) exactly which bits have LesnyRumcajs's copyright would have to be verified by exami…

What you're saying doesn't make any sense. If what you're saying was true you could take any MIT repro, fork it and replace the license with a fully proprietary copyright claim or any other license. You absolutely can't take code and just change the license to anything more permissive without the original copyright holders permission.

It's definitely the case that at a given snapshot of the repository which has copyrighted code owned by someone else the copyright notice has to be there at that same revision.

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

#267
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/all-caps-legal-agreements/amp... It’s legally important

Your text says it's not. What's legally important is to make certain parts of the text conspicuous . Using all-caps is one way of achieving this, but there are other options, such as using a different typeface, font size or colour.

BUT ALL - CAPS TEXT IS EASIEST AND AT LEAST TO ME SOUND RIGHTEOUS ENOUGH. I THINK THIS IS A CLASSIC CASE OF QUOTE IT AIN'T STUPID IF IT WORKS END QUOTE.

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

#268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is their process. Very hard to argue these are all mistakes: ippsample (Apache -> MIT) https://github.com/microsoft/ippsample/commit/938bff17c72868... huggingface-transformers (Apache -> MIT): https://github.com/microsoft/huggingface-transformers/commit... health-cards-tests (MIT changed) https://github.com/microsoft/health-cards-tests/commit/5649b... CUPS (Apache -> MIT) https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit…

Wrong. The more links, the easier it is to argue that it's a mistake. Automation is hard, you know? Especially if no one noticed these and called them out on it until now.

> Wrong. The more links, the easier it is to argue that it's a mistake. Automation is hard, you know?

Is it wrong though? I mean, if Microsoft's reiterated pattern of license switches is automated, wouldn't this also mean that the error would be easily detected based on public feedback alone? And given this was not the first or second or third separate and independent occurrence of this pattern, if this was a honest mistake then wouldn't this already be addressed in any of the multiple past shout-out?

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

#269
post #178

The attitude in these threads always boggles my mind. When YOU, your teammates or someone else you know makes a mistake, then it’s just a mistake. But when someone at Microsoft makes a mistake it’s because Microsoft is evil and by extension so is the person who offended. “It’s a big company”, you say. They should have a process! And I’m sad to say, they do/will have a process exactly because of this attitude. Then, e…

[deleted]

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

#270
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because it was done intentionally by an employed individual in this case rather than a bot. You cannot in good conscious as an individual make this "mistake" without knowing or acting maliciously unless you are incompetent to begin with. Seems like a growing trend at MS. And I'll remind you that Apple actually uses CUPS for their print backend and funds it directly, they retain the original license and support the project, meanwhile MS takes it, doesn't contribute and acts like it's their own, sick.

https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/8100595a3a3a6d5c7d0...

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