Getting forked by Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#241

Post by consp » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:33 PM UTC

nicoburns wrote: post #101

koiueo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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.

GPLv3 with interpreted code is a legal nightmare you do not want. Compiled is manageable.

Then again I've seen companies publishing stuff on GitHub, when asked about the license; slapping GPLv3 on it but also forcing you to take a license with them for commercial use. Yea no, thanks. You just made a poison pill somehow even more lethal.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#242

Post by onehair » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:34 PM UTC

redbell wrote: post #237

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…

> Not sure how people fell so hard for "Microsoft I think it's important to highlight that the " Microsoft " narrative deserves some scrutiny too: ( https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/lbp1m8/for_anyone_th... )

Well it does love open-source, it lives free access to source code it would otherwise had to put money into developing the same thing xD

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#243

Post by anonymousiam » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:35 PM UTC

Microsoft has almost always behaved unethically. Many examples similar to yours are easy to find. Their behavior in your case immediately reminded me of this 1994 example:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-24-fi-26671-...

They've engaged many naive people/companies, milked them of their knowledge after signing NDAs, and then stabbed them in the back, stealing eveything.

They're big enough, and have unlimited legal resources to vigorously defend any legal challenge, and also to launch legal attacks at will.

After the DOJ anti-trust case, they preemptively put every major law firm on retainer, so nobody else could retain them in an effort vs. Microsoft, without creating a conflict of interest.

They are still evil, but less so after Gates and Ballmer.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#244

Post by bsnnkv » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:36 PM UTC

I feel for this person. I stopped using open source licenses a while ago, and I've recently started writing about how I've ended up where I am. One of my pieces got shared here last month and predictably didn't land with the readership.

Nevertheless, I'm going to keep writing (latest piece [1]) about my post-open source journey in the hopes of clicking with a handful of people in the next generation.

[1]: https://lgug2z.com/articles/on-evils-in-software-licensing/ - feel free to hit me up off-platform if you want to discuss

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#245

Post by andybak » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:36 PM UTC

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.

It really does. It stops it being used by people who need or want to use other licences. I believe it stops it being used on iOS and (probably) Android apps. The GPL world and the permissive licence worlds are walled off from each other in significant ways for lots of reasons.

Source: I maintain an app where I didn't choose and can't change the licence. And I come across code I can't touch almost every week.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#246

Post by consp » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:37 PM UTC

TheDong wrote: post #124

gwd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I initially had the same reaction to the MIT license; but it sort of looks like the GPL (or AGPL) wouldn't have really prevented this behavior. Microsoft (it sounds like) is making the code available; they've just extended and renamed the project. They could have done exactly the same thing (fork, rename, release under the same license), with the same effects he's complaining about (free-loading the consulting time,…

I think the better approach would have been to give the author a choice of what happens. i.e. they could have emailed the author to ask: 1. "Would you rather us fork your project (new name), or would you rather donate your project to us under its original name, as well as give us the ability to rename it (which we will)" 2. "Would you like a $300 microsoft store gift card as thanks for writing some code we're plannin…

Don't know about the US but here giving a gift card would be an in kind payment which requires a contract. And all the associated mess with it.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#247

Post by scosman » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:38 PM UTC

ryao wrote: post #54

I initially was going to say: Failing to abide by the MIT license is copyright infringement. My advice is to contact these guys: https://softwarefreedom.org/ They likely can file a cease and desist on your behalf. However, I took a closer look at the files in question. The MIT license requires that they retain and provide copyright notices, but you never put copyright notices in your files. The only place where you a…

If they forked from before the author had a license, it’s worse. MS had no right to use it.

I’ve contributed to plenty of project that don’t have the per-file copyrights. It’s a choice not a mistake.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#248

Post by layer8 » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:39 PM UTC

talkingtab wrote: post #205

philipwhiuk wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My personal thought is that we need a new kind of license: community open source. No corporations, just community. It exists: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

As someone commented above, commercial use is an issue. Creative commons is good, but the non-commercial clause prevents it being useful in this case. It seems to be that the crucial issue here is the duplication of the project by forking. I am unclear of where the boundaries could and should be, but in essence we want money to flow into community source projects. Corporations and commercial entities can and should p…

> the non-commercial clause prevents it being useful in this case. [...] Corporations and commercial entities can and should pay a fair amount.

There is nothing preventing the project owner from also granting individual paid commercial licenses. There are a number of GPLv3 (or other restrictive license) projects with a note like "contact us for commercial licenses" in the README.

Licenses aren't exclusive by default. If a company doesn't like the existing license, they are always free to contact the project owner(s) to request a custom license.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#249

Post by alganet » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #204

koiueo wrote: post #19

> 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…

Have to agree with this. There's an endless list of open source maintainers who publish an MIT-licensed project then are surprised when it is treated as an MIT-licensed project. If you want rights, assert them. No one else is looking out for you. Especially not Microsoft.

Maybe many MIT license users want a big company to take in their projects.

Big companies have resources to mimic it anyway, right? If they really want some tech, they can reproduce it.

Having a good idea flourish, whether it is in Microsoft's hands, manifested within Clojure, or in any other fruitful form, is good enough.

There is no license for a raw idea anyway. For the essence of it. Seeing it used means success, it means "you were right".

The secret counsel of idea honor keepers will eventually figure it out and make some kind of repairs.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#250

Post by throwaway2046 » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

benwilber0 wrote: post #5

Don't use one of the most permissive licenses in existence and certainly not one that doesn't provide copyleft. This is all very well established at this point and yet somehow the GPL seems to have gone out of vogue.

> somehow the GPL seems to have gone out of vogue.

Which GPL is that? The GPL 2 and 3 are incompatible with each other, making cross contribution between different FOSS projects practically impossible. The "v2 or later" licensing model does nothing to remedy the problem. See Rob Landley's talk on this topic.