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Getting forked by Microsoft

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#101

Post by nicoburns »

koiueo wrote: post #95
nicoburns wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> what's the incentive for authors of one-man projects to choose anything "permissive". The incentive is generally that people enjoy having their projects used, be that by commercial companies or otherwise.

(A)GPLv3 does not prevent their projects from being used. That's the point! GPL family of licenses would've made a difference in this aspect for libraries (because afair if you link to GPL code, you must be GPL). But for an app? You can use it, fork it, modify it... Just make sure you make your changes available under the same license. Seems very fair to me.

> (A)GPLv3 does not prevent their projects from being used.

In practice, it does in many cases. Many companies have a blanket policy of avoiding these licences. But I agree that they make more sense for apps than libraries.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#102

Post by sublimefire »

This post is a great example why the choice of a license matters. You never know what your code will evolve into, so why give away your countless hours to a company/3rdparty that does not really care (aws, msft, goog, etc). License matters and large companies would not risk litigation and even if they do, that would be a great way to earn money down the road for the copyright holder. The only FOMO with MIT is that your code will prob not gonna be easily used by 3rd parties in production which would diminish the popularity effect. On the other hand, I think that code has more value if it uses a copyleft license and I am much more inclined to contribute to it.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#103

Post by giancarlostoro »

diggan wrote: post #3

> As a sole maintainer of an open source project, I was enthused when Microsoft reached out to set up a meeting to talk about Spegel. The meeting went well, and I felt there was going to be a path forward ripe with cooperation and hopefully a place where I could onboard new maintainers. Seems it isn't the first time Microsoft leads open source maintainers on, trying to extract information about their projects so they…

> The best advice for open source maintainers who are being approached by large tech companies is to be very wary

Drop them a consultation fee in the thousands per hour, get something out of it at least. If they're going to reimplement your project, there's absolutely 0 you can do, they will just hire an intern and tell them the requirements for what you have built without having to meet you, ask them for expenses out of your day covered.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#104

Post by throwaway277432 »

bayindirh wrote: post #67
throwaway277432 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No! Once you change the copyright line, you no longer include "the above copyright notice". At that point you're violating the license. You are also not allowed to change the copyright notice or license text in any way (you may however add to the license, which is a loophole other licenses such as GPL fix.) Substantial is subject to (legal) debate as the Oracle vs. MS case has shown. Whole functions or large parts of…

> I'm seriously flabbergasted at how bad reading comprehension seems to be among coders. Sorry to deflate your amazement, but I made the remark because I have never seen a permissively licensed repository which changed hands and had multiple copyright lines in the last 20 years or so . Maybe it's not my reading comprehension (and English is not my native language to begin with), but the behaviors of other coders to b…

I've seen plenty of both. I've added one good example in my other comment. But it certainly depends on the community and programming language as to how serious licensing is treated.

But yes, many people are not complying with the license literally, and it's frustrating to see. I know it basically doesn't matter unless you go to court over it, but still it irks me and screams a sort of carelessness about the rules and social contract.

Sorry for criticising your reading comprehension, I did not mean it as a personal insult.

It's just that I see these types of responses so often, basically every time any licensing question comes up. Twice in this thread. And all that's required is to just read the very short and basic MIT license text itself, no lawyering required.

I can understand the native speaker part, but just know that I myself am not a native speaker either. But I understand that's a huge barrier.

But even native speakers on HN with serious software engineering jobs and skill don't understand it, or don't want to understand. I think it's a bit like when people see math proofs, they mentally just skip over it.

That's the part that continues to amaze me.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#106

Post by johnisgood »

ryao wrote: post #99
johnisgood wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but you never put copyright notices in your files. I thought having a LICENSE file in the project's root directory was sufficient. Is it not the case?

It is a fairly standard practice in at least some open source communities to add copyright notices to files that people have changed significantly, although there is no well defined minimum threshold for how much permits them to add a copyright notice. Thus, someone else can come along, fork the project, add copyright notices to all of the files and then give the impression that they wrote them, since there is no att…

Thanks! I have some open source projects where I only have one LICENSE file (it is also in README), but I will consider adding it to all files, there are just too many files. :/ I am inconsistent, because I have projects that contain the copyright notice in all files.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#107

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

latexr wrote: post #89
buran77 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're hoping not to antagonize the megacorp (too quickly). If a megacorp has you in their sights, especially in a country like the US where court battles are prohibitively expensive, pushing the envelope will just draw ire and aggression from that megacorp. A normal person has no negotiating leverage in front of MS especially when it comes to open source. It's like negotiating with the mafia, you might get…

> especially in a country like the US where ending up in court is prohibitively expensive What’s the scenario here where they could take you to court for refusing to (in GP’s words) doing charity for them? Scenario 1: Microsoft contacts you and says they want to talk about your open-source project. You never reply. Scenario 2: Microsoft contacts you (…). You reply “thank you, but I’m not interested. You are of course…

“Ending up in court” vs “Microsoft suing you.” I think the implication is that if MS simply decided to unilaterally fork the project and change the license, the OS maintainer’s only real recourse is the court system (and the court of public opinion), and that would be expensive.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#108

Post by LegionMammal978 »

sublimefire wrote: post #43
skywhopper wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t mind sharing my software with others, even folks who want to make a profit. Of course, that’s easy for me to say since I’ve only released a few small projects open source. But when I do, I make my projects fully public domain. I’m not interested in feeling any sense of obligation to those who try the software out, so I free them from any obligation to me as well. That said, I fully support larger projects bei…

This makes no sense, you want to make sure software gets updated in the future, however small. Permissive licensing allows companies to hide improvements and this in the long term erodes the original. Individuals on the other hand are not bound by legal teams and can work with GPL and similar.

The idea behind permissive licensing like this is that you don't particularly care about "eroding the original": you don't see its ineffable status in relation to others' work as something that must forever be maintained.

I've also leaned toward CC0-style licensing for some of my smaller projects, that are shared for explanatory or artistic purposes. The reasoning is that GPL-style licenses give the code its own 'weight' as a unit, that keeps others from lifing good ideas from the code and incorporating them into their own projects as they wish, at any point in the next ~135 years. (The barriers aren't just the stereotypical "how dare they make me share my code!" but also the realities of license compatibility, having to make sure never to lose any version of the source, and so on.)

I agree with GP that this isn't necessarily the best idea for large projects that exist for their own sake and that companies might find great profit in copying. But it's not like all projects fit that description.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#109

Post by formerly_proven »

chii wrote: post #97
freeamz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, think we ought to judge on a case by case basis. However, for megacorp and especially banks that has almost 0 to 1% access to cost of capital, vs rest of us who at at 20 - 30 % ( for credit card, loan sharks), then there should be a different license for these people. There should be a GLP type license adjusted to the cost of the capital.

There should not be any difference between small or large entitise in how you deal with them as an opensource maintainer. Just because someone has more money (or less), should not automatically mean you treat them with more leniency or ethics. You set up your standard, and stick to it whomever comes.

> You set up your standard, and stick to it whomever comes.

Why? Most businesses don't entertain standard rates, either. It's case-by-case negotiations ("call us", "request quote"). Why should I, as a private person putting stuff out there for free, set up "my standard" and stick to it?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#110

Post by keepamovin »

chii wrote: post #97
freeamz wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm, think we ought to judge on a case by case basis. However, for megacorp and especially banks that has almost 0 to 1% access to cost of capital, vs rest of us who at at 20 - 30 % ( for credit card, loan sharks), then there should be a different license for these people. There should be a GLP type license adjusted to the cost of the capital.

There should not be any difference between small or large entitise in how you deal with them as an opensource maintainer. Just because someone has more money (or less), should not automatically mean you treat them with more leniency or ethics. You set up your standard, and stick to it whomever comes.

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