Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own licensing choices.
Getting forked by Microsoft
111–120 of 1001 posts
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Because otherwise it's not a value, it's a whim.
But I guess they don't mean set the same price for everyone - but rather stick to your values in what you do.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#113Microsoft loves open source, remember? It doesn't love you.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#114> I default to using the MIT license as it is simple and permissive What's good about being "permissive"? I keep hearing this argument, but I still don't understand, what's the incentive for authors of one-man projects to choose anything "permissive". Do you enjoy your project getting forked, walled off and exploited for profit by someone who has never done you any good? AGPLv3 still allows forking, still allows maki…
I always choose permissive licenses for personal project, and I often avoid depending on other projects that aren't permissive. If I want to know that, if I need to, I can grab the code and change something. And I want others to be able to remix what I make as needed.
The more limitations added on a license, the less open it is.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#115> Software released under an MIT license allows for forking and modifications, without any requirement to contribute these changes back. This sentence is true but a bit confusing, because there are no licenses that require anyone to contribute changes back upstream.
To provide changes upstream, the maintainer must accept the change. Most opensource licenses are that you are required to publish your changes. But not upstream. As you wrote, there is no license that forces any "pull requests". The MIT license is the "easiest" license because there are no responsibility for the maintainer..
> Most opensource licenses are that you are required to publish your changes
This isn't true either. You can privately fork AGPLv3 software without violating the license. You only have to provide the source (on demand!) to people who you provide the software to in executable form (where "executable form" includes network based access to the services executing the software in the case of the AGPL).
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
A bit. There are licenses that require people to publish their changes, though, and that is almost certainly what the poster meant.
No there aren't. You can make changes to AGPLv3 software without publishing it anywhere. The only requirement is that you make your changes available in source form to anyone that you distribute changes to, which may be entirely private, or involve no one besides yourself.
The AGPL requires that your publish your source to the people who use your software over the network.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#118> 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…
If a megacorp wants your help to explain ANYTHING to them, you better be paid handsomely per hour. Wtf are people doing charity for trillion dollar empires.
It's also very possible they had been working on it already and wanted to compare notes, I certainly would if I were working on something internal and found a similar project, but I agree, ask them for a consultation fee. I don't see why they wouldn't pay it.
Both projects also share in license, so I have less of an issue with it personally. They're both MIT licensed.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#119Earlier 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.
Interacting with faceless entities with the power to buy multiple countries the same way you'd interact with some interested independent young person wanting to learn.
Interesting moral proposition, I doubt you'd get many followers. I think it's perfectly reasonable to treat people differently from corporations, and random small and medium corporations differently than huge megacorps without losing any sleep.
Specially in business, charging more to those that can pay more is a very common approach.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Temping, but we don't fight their crummy tactics by using the same ones.
Why is it crummy? Open source benefits big tech now. Especially for cloud based stuff. Only open source it if it fucks big tech. E.g. bittorrent or an alternative browser. Or an app on your local machine as a SaaS alternative.
Blobs violate clause 2 of the Open Source Definition:
We are no longer talking about open source software if you distribute blobs in place of source code.