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Getting forked by Microsoft

philiplaine.com

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#501

Post by [deleted] »

kazinator wrote: post #358
WD-42 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 co…

[deleted]

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#502

Post by didgetmaster »

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.

The author talks about changing his licensing as the only stone he can throw.

As I understand it, changing the licensing will do nothing to affect the fork Microsoft already made. It might affect the next megacorp from doing the same thing in the future, but Microsoft can keep working on their fork without giving it a second thought.

This is for sure a cautionary tale for every open source contributor. Choose the original open source license very carefully.

Edit: Might I suggest that when picking the original license, you try to imagine how you might feel if the company that you hate the most (could be Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or other) does the most extreme thing allowed by the license.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#503

Post by palata »

tedivm wrote: post #487
palata wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which notice? None of the *.go source files I have opened in Spegel contain a notice. Microsoft cannot remove a notice that does not exist... In my opinion, it's the Spegel author's fault: they should have added a notice in every single file!

The "notice" is the literal license file. It is illegal to strip someone else's license from their work. It doesn't matter that they replaced MIT with MIT, because they stripped the author and attribution from it. https://github.com/Azure/peerd/blob/main/LICENSE If you read that file you'd think that Microsoft was the copyright holder, but they very clearly aren't.

> but they very clearly aren't.

Peerd seems very different from Spegel, so Microsoft does hold quite a bit of copyright over Peerd.

Now I genuinely wonder if the main LICENSE should say "copyright Spegel and Microsoft", or if somewhere in the repo Microsoft should just have a copy of the Spegel LICENSE file?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#504

Post by minus7 »

paxys wrote: post #386
layer8 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No legal basis. They still might have an ethical basis regarding Microsoft's behavior, because law != ethics.

If the author has ethical concerns with companies using their work there's a simple way to make that explicit and unambigious – the license. No one can read their mind otherwise.

If you consult with someone over their project, then proceed to fork it behind their back, that's just being a dick, even if it was perfectly legal. We should not accept that kind of behavior. And that's even ignoring that the consultation was unpaid and the project was actually even stolen.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#505

Post by debugnik »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #107
latexr wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> especially in a country like the US where ending up in court is prohibitively expensive What’s the scenario here where they could take you to court for refusing to (in GP’s words) doing charity for them? Scenario 1: Microsoft contacts you and says they want to talk about your open-source project. You never reply. Scenario 2: Microsoft contacts you (…). You reply “thank you, but I’m not interested. You are of course…

“Ending up in court” vs “Microsoft suing you.” I think the implication is that if MS simply decided to unilaterally fork the project and change the license, the OS maintainer’s only real recourse is the court system (and the court of public opinion), and that would be expensive.

Except MS did it anyway: the author cooperated and MS still forked and removed the original copyright notice.

Since this isn't the first time MS does this to a FOSS maintainer, it's clear this tactic doesn't help us.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#506

Post by saulpw »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #481
saulpw wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OSS philosophy was conceived to help end users, not for-profit corporations. Then for-profit corporations co-opted the "Open Source"(tm) label to ensure they could benefit from all this free labor. You and many others are falling for it, and doing their work for them by scolding OSS developers for "going against the OSS philosophy". So screw this corporate "OSS philosophy", and stop telling people what they "shou…

The point is what do creators want to get out of their open source project. If it is the opportunity to sell, they can make it source available. If they don't want money, having open source license is better as it could mean more contributions.

In practice it doesn't mean more contributions though. If MSFT used his project for profit and contributed back, he wouldn't be complaining. Instead they forked his project, without even sufficient attribution, and now he has to do even more work to differentiate his original project from their derivative.

So the point is that we need another license that does gives open source rights to individuals, yet does not permit corporations to take everything and give nothing.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#507

Post by palata »

Conan_Kudo wrote: post #489
palata wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. So Microsoft should just have a copy of this LICENSE file somewhere? Can't we just open a PR to add it to the repo? Did the author do that and did Microsoft decline the PR? Feels like Microsoft was not necessarily trying to steal work (they link the original project in their README).

It needs to be present in the headers of each file that they took from. Attribution matters and in mixed projects you need that clarification at the file level.

Does the MIT licence text say that? I don't understand it like this. I understand that a copy of the licence should be preserved, not that the licence should be copied into source files.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#508

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

palata wrote: post #459
NobodyNada wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is the condition of the MIT license.

Ok, but then why not just opening a PR in the repo asking for that? Sounds like a very minor change . Yes, they have to do it and they should. But I feel like insulting them because they gave credit in the README but not exactly in the proper way is a bit aggressive. Engineers in big companies are quick to criticise how the legal department is a pain in the ass, but when I see the reactions here, I completely underst…

It definitely seems like this whole thing is known by maybe 5 individuals at Microsoft. It's not some big affront on open source software, they didn't relicense the code under a less permissive license or anything, they just updated the copyright notice improperly. And that part I wouldn't be shocked was a single individual dev's doing.

I agree, op should make a PR, state their case, and then complain if it's not merged.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#509

Post by cestith »

ryao wrote: post #163
Zambyte wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/Azure/peerd/blob/main/LICENSE I don't see "Copyright (c) 2024 The Spegel Authors" (the "above copyright notice" in https://github.com/spegel-org/spegel/blob/main/LICENSE ) anywhere. Where do you see it?

To be fair, Spegel changed the copyright notice in 2024. It used to say someone else. That said, Microsoft is definitely missing the notice.

The original author can change their own notice. Why would that be a problem?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#510

Post by BeetleB »

Salgat wrote: post #447
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…

Ignoring that Microsoft isn't following the MIT licensing requirements, this is my same approach with using the MIT license. I create open source software for the benefit of everyone, for profit or not for profit. The only thing I do wish in return is acknowledgement. That's why in this case, I'd reach out to Microsoft to fix that issue, and nothing more.

> The only thing I do wish in return is acknowledgement.

Make sure you pick a license that reflects what you want, then.

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