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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]

#291

Post by productceo »

osolo wrote: 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…

+1

This is the peril of the imaginary "corporation" identity. People expect a company to be one coherent and consistent entity, but although a company can be managed well, establish culture and processes, and progress towards cohesion, it can never become as coherent as one person. And a person is not that coherent in the first place.

I am sure I subconsciously make the same mistake when I think about other companies. But I am making conscious effort to get better, take a more forgiving view on the humankind and give people as well as corporations chance to try again and be a better version of themselves, build the mental capability to remember that corporations are comprised of real people, and people make mistakes, and reasonable people who make up the majority of the population are constantly seeking (just struggling) to be better versions of themselves.

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

#292

Post by halayli »

osolo wrote: 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 am finding it hard to accept that it is an honest mistake.

From my personal experience, every software engineer that works in a company of this scale is obligated to take a training course on software licensing and understand the differences, and the "dos and don'ts".

If Microsoft doesn't have such a program in place then that's a big problem and should expect harsh criticisms when such events take place and if they do then it probably needs to be revised because it doesn't seem adequate.

On the other hand, outside the context of MS, if a software engineer doesn't feel they are doing something dirty as they are replacing the license or the thought of I might get in trouble with legal doing that doesn't cross their mind, then they probably shouldn't be allowed to be at the front line taking actions that represents the company's name.

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

#293

Post by curious_cat_163 »

osolo wrote: 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…

There is not an attitude for the whole thread. Understandably you feel defensive but there is no need to.

If you care about this issue, try to get it fixed within your company and move on.

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

#294

Post by CyberShadow »

37ef_ced3 wrote: post #274
CyberShadow wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I own zero shares of anything directly or indirectly.

Quoted post unavailable.

No. I am not in the program nor requested access.

This is my last reply in this subthread; feel free to assume the same answer for all questions along the same line.

I also invite you to review the HN comment guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#295

Post by sofixa »

shp0ngle wrote: post #133
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.

This is very obviously a mistake and I don’t know how can anyone assume otherwise.

Because it's a very stupid mistake. I have a hard time believing someone developed a bot to deal with repo normalisation on GitHub that doesn't know how GitHub functions, what forks are, and that you can't just change the LICENSE with a file of your own. I don't necessarily think it was done on purpose to steal copyrighted content ( that'd be too stupid even for Microsoft), but it's a weird mistake to make.

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

#296

Post by timeon »

res0nat0r wrote: post #273
laumars wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t just one person making a silly mistake. This is a catalogue of failings. Where’s the peer review? Are you suggesting that anything published in the main branch on Microsoft’s GH org gets commit without any branch protection? And as pointed out by others, this isn’t even an isolated case. A healthy org doesn’t blame individuals, it blames failures in process. Thus Microsoft should own this mistake. Stating…

It's an automated bot, and it's an edge case that wasn't considered and is going to get fixed soon.

Is forking on Github edge case?

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

#297

Post by sofixa »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #172
toxik wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has a long and dark history. I think you’re brushing aside the real contention. People who were around before MS decided to open-source-wash their brand KNOW what Microsoft’s DNA is. They had a literal playbook to crush Linux.

From twenty year ago . You say it’s in their DNA, but I’ll bet that the majority of people there now were not there 20 years ago. Old habits die hard, yes, but they do die. Microsoft has committed to open source. Maybe it’s self fulfilling reasons, but that doesn’t mean we should brush it off. If some higher up decided to go open source for PR reasons, who cares? We should be embracing it. Shunning it will just make…

Microsoft might have committed to open source for business reasons, to an extent ( see the recent .NET debacles), but they're still the same monopolist-abusing and anti-competitive company ( see the recent Edge debacles). They're an inherently bad and evil company, and even though they seemed to be improving, they've gone back to old tactics rather quickly.

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

#298

Post by micimize »

akkartik wrote: post #286
osolo wrote: 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's a bug, but it's also an example of what I think of as differential accountability : * Bugs in the bot inevitably assign ownership to the writer rather than from the writer. * Bugs in the billing system invariably overcharge customers * Bugs in the image recognition system invariably select white people. Well-meaning people still follow their incentives. Corners have to get cut somewhere. I totally agree this isn…

This isn't true – the only billing system bug I've seen undercharged. Also if it was an overcharge, they would have made customer whole, whereas they wrote off the undercharge.

Microsoft doesn't really gain anything here – there's a clear "forked from" qualifier in the repo, they aren't republishing these packages, etc. The only people who noticed noticed in a negative light.

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

#299

Post by michaelmrose »

osolo wrote: 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…

Few people are likely to know but many people are very familiar with decades of bad behavior undertaken by Microsoft not as isolated misdeeds but as a matter of policy. Lacking personal context misdeeds or mistakes are extremely apt to be interpreted in context of literal decades of bad behavior by Microsoft.

I mean come on the seismic change in leadership at Microsoft is just former lower echelon leaders during the time frame that MS was doing wrong now moving up and taking the helm.

We are after all talking about the company that tried to destroy the competition by funneling money into a fraudulent lawsuit/pr campaign that was a front for a pump and dump. The only thing separating MS leadership and felony charges is meeting notes between them and SCO and the fact that important people don't go prison in the US if can at all be avoided. Lest we forget the current CEO was at this time an executive VP as well.

Maybe it boggles your mind merely because you yourself are an ethical person who comports themselves properly professionally and would want people to see your efforts good and bad in context of who you are. This is entirely reasonable but people don't know you personally whereas your company makes headlines for bad behavior.

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

#300

Post by m3047 »

tptacek wrote: post #217
fxtentacle wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

What financial benefits do they stand to gain by changing the name on an MIT license?

They're asserting ownership. By asserting ownership they're converting good will and assuming the mantle of authority, which will sway plenty of weak-minded people: hey it's Microsoft.
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