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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]

#401

Post by dapids »

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…

Do you mind addressing the reason why an employee did exactly what you are claiming the bot did in error?

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

Again, this is a person, not a robot. How does this play into a "software bug"?

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

#402

Post by tomnipotent »

3np wrote: post #377
victorvscn wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 Micro…

I don't know if you're aware of other not-that-ancient incidents like these? https://keivan.io/the-day-appget-died/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180715225433/https://threadrea... It took significant public outrage and press coverage before either of those were even acknowledged, a long time after. > What were the chances that Microsoft was openly doing that? After reading the above, is it really that edgy to be assu…

> After reading the above, is it really that edgy to be assuming the worst?

Yes. Neither of this are particularly damning.

> doesn't that speak to a systemic and/or cultural issue

No, not particularly. I think it says more about the person jumping to such conclusions considering the evidence.

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

#403

Post by dapids »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #367
tptacek wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

It's not just bots, it's real people: https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/8100595a3a3a6d5c7d0...

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

#404

Post by tptacek »

bayindirh wrote: post #398
tptacek wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big clue you have that the reactions here were knee-jerk is that they all turned out to be totally wrong. There's a lot of corncob dot gif happening in the aftermath.

I'm glad that my assumption proven to be wrong, by Microsoft itself, nonetheless. However, is being wrong is always equal to being a knee-jerk? Does the reputation of the company in question doesn't play a role here? Or, shall we be stateless, and evaluate every events without any prior experience? I don't think that holds a lot of water in real world, either.

Another clue that it's knee-jerkism is that the accusations make no sense. It's hard to see what Microsoft plausibly stood to gain by modifying an MIT license. I suspect a lot of the accusations here are being made by people who simply don't know what an MIT license means. For that matter: even with a restrictive license like the GPL, it's hard to make sense of this as a heist, especially since it's right there in the public git log.

I don't think it's going to be possible to salvage the torch and pitchfork comments on this thread. For lack of a better way to put it: they're pretty dumb.

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

#405

Post by dado3212 »

michaelmrose wrote: post #319
dado3212 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when $new_repo in $msft_github: echo $standard_license > LICENSE.md Could just be normal practices, and doesn’t check if a license already exists because it’s usually handling non-forked OSS repos. What’s the phrase? “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence”.

Quoted post unavailable.

I don’t know why people assume the more money you make the more infallible you are. Trust me that every FAANG engineer has written code with some similar pitfall that seems so obvious from the outside.

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

#406

Post by mkdirp »

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 saw your comment on the cups repo. Please don't feel horrible about it. An honest mistake is an honest mistake, as long as the issues are remediated. Merry Christmas

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

#407

Post by sangnoir »

bmitc wrote: post #391

What's surprising to me about all the negative reactions Microsoft receives, especially on here, is that from my point of view, they are currently the most open out of all the big companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc). I cannot remember a time Apple has admitted to anything or made any effort to have anything that could be considered open, but they do no wrong in most people's eyes, where even a simple mistake by…

> ...from my point of view, they are currently the most open out of all the big companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc)

I'm curious to know how you're measuring openness. I agree Apple is the least open of the group, but Facebook and Google owe their existence to FLOSS, and were always in harmony with it from their origins.

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

#408

Post by tptacek »

3np wrote: post #340
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…

Really appreciate the prompt and transparent response, Jeff. Especially at a time when I assume you were not expecting to jump in on duty. I hope that despite all the harsh words, you can have sympathy with that behind them are legitimate concerns and suspicion stemming from past bad behavior from various part of your organization. Due to this, and Microsoft's position of power, you have a much, much lower budget for…

Yes, it would be far-fetched. The conspiracy theory here is self-evidently implausible. We need to stop pretending that the accusations here were made in good faith, or are anything more than wishcasting. People write about these things because it's a lot more fun for them than to write about what actually might have happened, even if what actually happened is probably a better, more lastingly valuable conversation to have.

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

#409

Post by tiahura »

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…

It was immediately obvious that it was a script gone awry. Sorry your team had to spend your holiday on something so trivial.

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

#410

Post by freediver »

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…

Hanlon's razor to the rescue!
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