Getting forked by Microsoft • Hacker News Board

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#331

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:35 PM UTC

ABS wrote: post #62

znpy wrote: post #33

> Spegel was published with an MIT license. Software released under an MIT license allows for forking and modifications, without any requirement to contribute these changes back. If that's what the license says, why is the author complaining? Microsoft is complying with the license. That's what you get for not picking the one of the license from the GPL family. > However, I am not the first and unfortunately not the…

if only you had kept reading 2 more sentences after the one you quoted you'd know: "The license does not allow removing the original license and purport that the code was created by someone else. It looks as if large parts of the project were copied directly from Spegel without any mention of the original source"

[deleted]

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#332

Post by Nemo_bis » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #326

pritambaral wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Violated by the removal of author's copyright notice.

Adding the copyright notice to be in compliance, does not change the fact that the author has chosen a licence that allows anyone, including Microsoft, to do whatever they feel like, without giving back. So eventually, with this bad publicity, they will add the copyright notice, and move on with whatever else they are doing, in full compliance.

Microsoft did not bother to respect even the MIT license, so clearly the license is not the problem.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#333

Post by nicce » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

nosequel wrote: post #165

gwerbret wrote: post #59

I suspect that what's happening internally (at Microsoft) is that someone's leveraging your work towards their next promotion packet. They went to their manager with "hey I've got this great idea" and followed it up with your code a few weeks later. Of course, this only works if they claim they were "inspired" by Spegel to "write their own code".

> I suspect that what's happening internally (at Microsoft) is that someone's leveraging your work towards their next promotion packet. It just so happens that the Microsoft engineer who originally changed the license in GitHub went from Senior to Principal engineer at Microsoft in the past two months (according to LinkedIn). So you probably aren't far off.

I wonder if there exists any system in place that this could backfire rapidly if this could be proved on some level. Unfortunately, world needs examples and consequences before anything changes. If this worked for this particular engineer, others will follow and will attempt the same. It will become a norm in big corps.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#334

Post by unsungNovelty » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

Am a bit confused. Is Microsoft breaking MIT license here? I can see both projects are in MIT and I don't see the below

Which should be retained when you are forking it right? Or am I wrong?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#335

Post by fnordpiglet » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:38 PM UTC

SoftTalker wrote: post #290

jenadine wrote: post #215

Earlier 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).

Well, it’s the difference between plagiarism and attribution. If your goal isn’t money but a bare minimum recognition for what was your work vs someone else taking credit for it, yes it’s enough.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#336

Post by Tireings » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:39 PM UTC

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…

Or it was just a team inside Microsoft and he thought "Microsoft" talked to him and saw already dollar signs?

Open source license is there for reasons, he can sue them if they did it wrong.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#337

Post by nwellinghoff » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:40 PM UTC

Is there a template license that says open source unless your market cap is or goes above x million? Would like companies to be able to use things to grow but then if they hit it big the have to start paying.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#338

Post by paxys » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

jenadine wrote: post #215

wat10000 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve released some utility libraries under permissive libraries. I like it when they get used. Even when it’s part of a large company’s closed-source app. Many people don’t like that, and that’s perfectly fine, that’s why there are different choices available. What I’ll never understand is people who release their project with a permissive license and then get upset when a big company distributes their own version of…

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.

Microsoft credited the original author and project in the README, which is far more visible than a hidden copyright line somewhere in the terms and conditions. If attribution was what he wanted he should be really happy about he outcome, but clearly that's not what this is about. He is simply pissed that Microsoft used his project.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#339

Post by croemer » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

unsungNovelty wrote: post #334

Am a bit confused. Is Microsoft breaking MIT license here? I can see both projects are in MIT and I don't see the below Copyright (c) 2024 The Spegel Authors Which should be retained when you are forking it right? Or am I wrong?

Yes, indeed, that's missing. Though it should be: "Copyright (c) 2023 Xenit AB" as that was the license that was in place when the copy/paste took place: https://github.com/spegel-org/spegel/blob/ed21d4da925b9a179c...

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#340

Post by Tijdreiziger » Mon, Apr 21, 2025, 2:45 PM UTC

layer8 wrote: post #231

panzi wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So they don't use Linux, bash, or GCC?

Not in their products. Internal use is fine, but where it gets dicey from a legal point of view is when you distribute GPLv3 binaries as an integrated part of your product.

Many vendors use Linux in their products.

Think: smartphones (Android), routers, smarthome/IoT devices, other embedded devices.