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Getting forked by Microsoft

philiplaine.com

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#351

Post by vzaliva »

Many of us dislike Microsoft and big corporations, but here’s my (possibly unpopular) take:

1. Open source worked as expected. Some MIT-licensed code was forked under the same licence, giving users more options and contributing further to the open-source codebase.

2. I don’t understand the claim about users being confused between Spegel and Peerd. These are two products with different names and maintainers. Maybe some users are also confused between Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux - so what? I’m glad users have more choices.

3. The point about the original author not being given enough credit is the only valid one. The legal side, discussed in other comments, seems to suggest they’re within their rights, but they could have done better.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#352

Post by jandrewrogers »

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…

The great thing about permissive licenses is that it maximizes the utility of the code. I don’t care if someone makes a mountain of money by forking my permissively licensed code, that is in some sense the objective and I lose nothing by it.

This strain of rent-seeking behavior by some that open source their code but then believe they are entitled to compensation or forced contributions if the wrong people use it per license is distasteful and a bad look. It highlights the extent to which for many people the motivations behind their “open source” are not actually, you know, open source. For many, open source is about the utility of the source code and nothing more.

Licenses like AGPLv3 aren’t just about the utility of open source, they try to litigate concepts like fairness and justice at the same time, and open source isn’t a great venue for that.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#353

Post by croemer »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #346

Regarding the removal of copyright notice, did anyone open an issue on the Microsoft GitHub repo to have it restored? It should be relatively simple to fix. Yes, I know, this won't dull the knife that Microsoft stuck into the back of the original author.

Yep, there's an issue with 200+ reactions: https://github.com/Azure/peerd/issues/109

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#354

Post by andybak »

koiueo wrote: post #295
andybak wrote: post #238

Earlier 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?

Yes. GPL libraries especially.

My app project is Apache for historical reasons and can't be changed. https://github.com/icosa-foundation/open-brush/actions

(and I'm not sure if I would move to GPL if I could but that's a separate discussion)

I regularly come across interesting libraries that I can't use (half of CGAL for example)

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#355

Post by nu11ptr »

pama wrote: post #347
nu11ptr wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One should choose a license that fits them. The problem with GPL licenses is they are viral and non-permissive. As a developer, as soon as I see the GPL I just click away to another repo no matter how good the lib is. I don't want people doing that to my projects, so I use Apache/MIT or whatever the permissive license that is most prominent for the language I'm using.

One could argue that GPL is very permissive. If you need to use it in a proprietary way in your own company for internal purposes, no problem; if you release software that others use, you have to release the code as well. I dont want to be using black boxes in this day and age.

Permissiveness is relative, so in relation to MIT/BSD/Apache, it is not.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#356

Post by pjmlp »

Nemo_bis wrote: post #332
pjmlp wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not arguing for Microsoft, rather the fact that people put out MIT licenced stuff out there, or similar, arguing how bad GPL happens to be, and then get all up in arms when companies do exactly what the licence allows for.

Microsoft might not have fully complied with the licence, adding the copyright notice to fix that, won't change a millimeter from what they are doing.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#357

Post by PeeMcGee »

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.

Well, the standard for software licensing is to sell cheaper licenses to smaller businesses and more expensive licenses to larger businesses.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#358

Post by kazinator »

WD-42 wrote: post #345
evantbyrne wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are supposed to keep the original license for a fork. > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. Simply removing the copyright is a violation of the MIT license.

It seems like a pretty minor violation, to be fair. They do reference the project in the repo. The real question is why did the author choose MIT if they didn’t want allow mega corps to benefit from their work without contributing back. That’s a feature of the license, not a bug.

It is literally the only violation that the license is concerned with therefore it is major!!!

MIT and BSD type licenses say you can do almost anything you want, but just don't plagiarize, because that would be intellectual misconduct.

In addition to not just removing the copyright notice from sources, the MIT license requires the copyright notice to be present in all derived works. It makes no mention that if you compile a program, the binaries don't have to have copyright notices.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#359

Post by Hyperlisk »

philipwhiuk wrote: post #153
talkingtab wrote: post #84

My personal thought is that we need a new kind of license: community open source. No corporations, just community. The problem this addresses is not that Microsoft forked this project. The problem is that when a corporation like Microsoft does this, they harm our community[0]. Open source thrives because a bunch of individuals and groups collaborate. Microsoft, is built around the concept of profit for stock owners a…

> 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/

Yes! Another vote for CC-BY-NC-SA! I release my code under this license as well, even snippets I post on my (tiny) blog.

I think this is what a lot of people would use if it were more known about. I feel like a lot of people do not actually read what a license provides and just default to MIT because it is widely used.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#360

Post by nu11ptr »

krupan wrote: post #342
nu11ptr wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One should choose a license that fits them. The problem with GPL licenses is they are viral and non-permissive. As a developer, as soon as I see the GPL I just click away to another repo no matter how good the lib is. I don't want people doing that to my projects, so I use Apache/MIT or whatever the permissive license that is most prominent for the language I'm using.

Hi! Do you work for Microsoft? There is nothing "non-permissive" about the GPL. You can use the code however you want. "Viral" is a perjorative description that Microsoft pioneered the use of to describe the GPL. The GPL is not a virus that latches onto any code it gets near, without anyone's permission. You should not use that term.

> The GPL is not a virus that latches onto any code it gets near

Honestly, that is EXACTLY how I feel about it. If I use GPL code in my code then my code must also be GPL (if I distribute). The term seems to fit to me.

And no, I've never worked for MS.

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