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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]

#361

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#362

Post by verst »

throwaway277432 wrote: post #247
verst wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bot that is supposed to configure the right license when employees start a new repo in the Microsoft GitHub org. It seems the automation is also triggered when Repos are forked into the Microsoft GitHub org which isn't correct behavior. This isn't a deliberate action. If it were plenty of employees (myself included) would be outraged. I assume it's a bug in the bot - an edge case that was not considered. It…

Thank you. So these are in fact all mistakes. I looked at some of the other forked repos (95 out of 4.5K repos) and all the human commits from MS I saw seem to care about getting the licenses right. So it really is just a broken bot. I hope the bot can be fixed soon and I'm going to put my figurative pitchfork down now.

I reached out to Jeff Wilcox who runs the Open Source Programs Office now earlier (see Tweet https://twitter.com/berndverst/status/1474789173882089472?s=...).

He since commented on this post with a lot more detail.

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

#363

Post by Brave-Steak »

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…

No post body was provided.

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

#364

Post by sharken »

tptacek wrote: post #335
gautamcgoel wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of commenters are sharpening their pitchforks, but this comment, in my opinion, makes it very likely that it was an honest mistake. Amazing what taking personal responsibility and earnestly apologizing can do to restore trust and credibility!

It was obviously a mistake. Still nice to have someone involved give the backstory.

Yes, very nice writeup from Microsoft.

Had a similar experience with AzureCli v2.30, where the environment variable to ignore certificate errors suddenly did not work anymore.

It turned out it was removed but there was no mention of it in the release notes.

On the GitHub page quick response was provided by Microsoft.

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

#366

Post by victorvscn »

j4hdufd8 wrote: post #352
jeffwilcox wrote: post #321

I lead the Microsoft Open Source Programs Office team. I'm sorry this happened. We have merged a pull request that restored the correct LICENSE file and copyright, and are in touch with the upstream author Leśny Rumcajs who emailed us this morning. We'll look to revert the entire commit that our bot made, too, since it updated the README with a boilerplate getting started guide. The bug was caused by a bot that was d…

I'm really sorry you had to deal with this during the festive period. I certainly understand how scandalous this looks to crowds like Hacker News. But this seems a little bit blown out of proportion, as if Microsoft just forked the kernel or something and put their name on the license.

>I certainly understand how scandalous this looks to crowds like Hacker News.

I don't. I'm with the Microsoft employee who was pissed at how people think it's edgy to diss on Microsoft. What were the chances that Microsoft was openly doing that? Some dude who has now deleted his post said Microsoft was trying to "create a monopoly of web IDEs". These are clearly people who barely have a passing knowledge of how Microsoft works these days.

People think critical thinking means complaining endlessly. It doesn't. You can't think critically if you don't think clearly. And you can't think clearly if you're only looking for a reason to lift the pitchforks.

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

#367

Post by PragmaticPulp »

tptacek wrote: post #358
jeffwilcox wrote: post #321

I lead the Microsoft Open Source Programs Office team. I'm sorry this happened. We have merged a pull request that restored the correct LICENSE file and copyright, and are in touch with the upstream author Leśny Rumcajs who emailed us this morning. We'll look to revert the entire commit that our bot made, too, since it updated the README with a boilerplate getting started guide. The bug was caused by a bot that was d…

What happened here was obviously a mistake. The thread is full of lurid accusations, because those are fun to write and talk about, but it shouldn't take even a minute's thought to see how dumb a heist this would have been. The thread would have been a lot more fun if we could have spent it talking about what prompted your team to build this thingy, and bounce other people's approaches to the same problem off, and ma…

> The thread is full of lurid accusations, because those are fun to write and talk about, but it shouldn't take even a minute's thought to see how dumb a heist this would have been.

Another good reminder that Hacker News is not above assuming the worst and gathering pitchfork mobs like any other social media.

The issue looked like a mistake from the start to anyone paying attention (committed by a bot, changes were consistent with a boilerplate LICENSE file being checked in).

If someone at Microsoft wanted to steal some code, forking it on Github and then publicly documenting the history of the code in the most visible way possible would truly be the dumbest way to do it.

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

#368

Post by jounker »

hirsin wrote: post #318
fault1 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

teams seems important strategically for microsoft however, if it truly wants to remain as the standard 'operating system' for enterprises. but yeah, friends of mine who work at github say the worst thing about the acquisition was Teams

Which is odd because Github doesn't use Teams, they're Slack based. As in, if I set up a meeting with my Github counterparts they're late because they had to install Teams.

How is this inconsistent with “Teams is awful, and we avoid it as much as possible”?

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

#369

Post by obert »

jeffwilcox wrote: post #321

I lead the Microsoft Open Source Programs Office team. I'm sorry this happened. We have merged a pull request that restored the correct LICENSE file and copyright, and are in touch with the upstream author Leśny Rumcajs who emailed us this morning. We'll look to revert the entire commit that our bot made, too, since it updated the README with a boilerplate getting started guide. The bug was caused by a bot that was d…

Thanks for clarifying. This also highlights the lack of sufficient testing, and subpar processes, eg automation should be tested against critical paths, and changing a license should require human approval.

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

#370

Post by ognarb »

btdmaster wrote: post #355
ognarb wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/8100595a3a3a6d5c7d0... . This was done by an human.

Are they deliberately getting their modifications under an pseudo-incompatible* license? This is the only reasonable explanation I can think of. * IANAL. Although Apache 2.0 and MIT are compatible, using a different license makes it awkward for changes to be merged upstream.

The biggest change between Apache 2.0 and MIT are related to patents. INAL but the Apache 2.0 is a lot more safe in this aspect.
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