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Getting forked by Microsoft
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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#302Open source developer now learns why open source is stupid first hand. Thank you everyone for making free software!
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#303Earlier quoted context omitted.
Note that in this case Microsoft has not been following the license, as they removed the copyright notice Copyright (c) 2024 The Spegel Authors To replace it by their own. Despite the license says > The above copyright notice [...] shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
So if they had left that line in, everything would be cool? To me, licenses like MIT or BSD pretty much imply "do whatever you want with this" I know it's not exactly that but if you really care to keep some control over what others do with the code, you need a more restrictive license (and even then people are still going to copy it, especially in the LLM era).
> So if they had left that line in, everything would be cool?
It certainly would be better.
Forks tend not to have -perfect- relationships and tend to cause a bit of mutual annoyance. But attribution is important-- it's the most basic step.
When this maintainer is asked how the projects are related, it'd sure be nice if both projects are telling the same story, instead of one illegally lying about it.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#304If you write open source code, expect it to be forked. It's kind of what open source is all about. Do it because sharing knowledge is a moral good. The wealth, influence, power, etc of whoever may decide to participate in your act of open source is completely and utterly irrelevant.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
#306> 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…
As @diggan wrote[0] elsewhere in the thread, the issue is not that MIT is permissive but that Microsoft did not honor the requirements of the license (despite it being permissive!):
> Does it matter what license you use if they actively ignore the terms in the license you did chose? MIT requires attribution, but they didn't. Why would any other terms be different? You surely could have put "You must license your project the same as the one you forked from" and they still would have ignored it, not sure what the difference would have been.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#307Earlier quoted context omitted.
No license stops someone from spinning off an OSS project into their closed-sourced enterprise offering. It's just sad that most corps see nothing wrong with this
GPL definitely does.
> GPL definitely does.
Clearly it doesn't because companies get caught doing it with GPL software all the time.
... and the only recourse is to sue them into compliance.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
Companies are never just money. There is a monumental difference between: 1. A small company which is barely profitable but is building something which aligns with your values and you see as a positive to the world. 2. A massive mega corporation whose only purpose is profit, mistreats employees, and you view as highly unethical. You shouldn’t treat those the same way. It’s perfectly ethical to offer your work for fre…
There is no such difference. A company is not a person, and can literally have its entire staff changed in short order. Or be bought. Companies have no morals. Sometimes people in companies do, but again, that person can vanish instantly. You should treat a company as a person which may receive a brain transplant at any time. Most especially, when writing contracts or having any expectation of what that company will…
The key is contract. Casual chat with a corporate representative who isn’t selling you something about something you own requires some sort of contractual relationship and consideration.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#309> 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 think attitudes on license reflects on the whole a generational attitudes towards corporate use because the younger generation of software nerds grew up in epoch-boom-times. During ZIRP-boom-times, having a successful popular open source project could be a ticket to kudos and a high paying job and a certain level of responsibility and satisfaction. BigCos spread the money around, and your job as a SWE ended up bein…
> The GPL and the free software movement is borne out of an earlier era, GenX and younger boomers who lived through seeing their hard work exploited and stolen from them.
There may be something to that, but speaking as a GenX'er myself, I release most of my OSS code using the Apache License. I really don't care if anybody - from a single student in a 3rd world country, to a Fortune 50 megacorp - uses the code, so long as they abide by the license.
I'm not going to say there's NO circumstance where that might ever change. But to date, that's been my approach and I don't particularly see it ever changing.
Re: Getting forked by Microsoft
#310Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Do you enjoy your project getting forked, walled off and exploited for profit by someone who has never done you any good? By far the biggest risk for most projects is "nobody notices it and nobody uses it". And if someone "takes" your project and uses it - you've usually still got it. Software is funny like that.
If the project is good, the license is hardly ever an obstacle for adoption. At least I can't recall any such cases. Do you have any examples?
If it's GPL-like its usage would be mostly confined to open source projects.