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Getting forked by Microsoft

philiplaine.com

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#511

Post by unethical_ban »

hresvelgr wrote: post #17

While Microsoft is certainly in the wrong for removing the copyright notice, I think the author has zero basis for complaint otherwise. If you're going to release software with one of the most permissable licenses, you need to accept that for all it entails. Consider what you're comfortable with and pick an appropriate license relative to your values.

The author said that in the last line.

Highlight the part of the essay where he is claiming MS didn't have a right to do what they did.

The point of the article was that MS showed interest in his work, asked him about his designs. Said nothing about internal plans to fork it or use it. Then he shows up to a talk and sees them discussing his work.

Reading between the lines, it is 100% clear they didn't feel like telling him they planned to fork his software, and they danced around it. They didn't reach out to him afterward and say "thanks, we are building a fork and your free time was really useful".

The essay isn't claiming a legal issue. It's pointing out a substantial, practical issue with OSS that didn't exist nearly as prominently in the pre-cloud era: megacorps forking software and cutting out the OG developers.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#512

Post by 3np »

didgetmaster wrote: post #502
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.

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 ori…

It would prevent MS from backporting new changes.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#513

Post by Kubuxu »

palata wrote: post #494
Kubuxu wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question is who does the copyright belong to in this repository. It is both original author and Microsoft (because they took authors code and modified it). So the License file should mention both.

I am not convinced that the main LICENSE file should mention both. I feel like somewhere, in the project, there should be a copy of the original license. When you depend on a third-party, you don't add their copyright in your main LICENSE file.

In case of deps, the dependency comes with its own LICENSE file.

In this case the code is essentially forked, integrated and intermingled, so that is why it should be in the LICENSE file.

If it was file or two, it would be fine to add a comment pointing to the license file in the repo, if it was a directory, or to copy it verbatim to that file. It all the copied code was in a directory then having it in directory would be fine.

In this case it looks like they took the original code and heavily modified it, so the simplest way to solve it is one LICENSE with both notices.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#514

Post by BeetleB »

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…

> The problem is that when a corporation like Microsoft does this, they harm our community

What is this "our community"? My releasing something under the MIT license doesn't mean I'm part of whatever community you're invoking. It means I'm releasing something with an MIT license. That's it.

I certainly don't want to give companies like MS a "pause" before they decide to fork my project. I'm explicitly telling them they can do that. I absolutely do not want them to be hampered by notions of "What will this action look like?"

Don't impose your values on other people's use of my software.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#515

Post by debugnik »

nativeit wrote: post #407
nordsieck wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Were folks under the impression there were other options for license violations? Your comment implies that a lawsuit being the only recourse to enforce a license renders that license moot.

Some people just hoped that picking a corporate-unfriendly license would be enough of a deterrent by itself, because most folks can't actually afford to sue. But infringers, big and small, are increasingly realising that these licenses are toothless by themselves, they need to be backed by money.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#516

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

palata wrote: post #392
greatgib wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It all depends if the code was copied for a big part or just snippets.

But it doesn't here! You are totally allowed to completely copy an MIT file, modify it and add your copyright to it! You should just keep the copyright that is already present in the file! But in the case of Spegel, I don't think that the files contain a copyright header in the first place.

Nonsense. Copyright is implicit and assigned on creation.

The git history has a clear trail showing author and contributor details.

An explicit copyright notice for every file isn't needed.

This is a straightforward, unquestionable license violation, and no amount of corporate FUD will change that.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#517

Post by Amekedl »

keepamovin wrote: post #12

Forked up the wazoo. That said, Microsoft provides extremely generous Startup Assistance (to the tune of > 150K of Azure credits). Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with MS but I did their program, also did the Gcloud and AWS programs back in the day. No negative comparisons, but off the top of my head the Azure program is awesome. I really enjoyed working with Azure, and it does what it says on the tin. You can apply h…

This might as well be a LLM generated ad roll performance

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#519

Post by Beltiras »

giancarlostoro wrote: post #118
vasco wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a megacorp wants your help to explain ANYTHING to them, you better be paid handsomely per hour. Wtf are people doing charity for trillion dollar empires.

It's also very possible they had been working on it already and wanted to compare notes, I certainly would if I were working on something internal and found a similar project, but I agree, ask them for a consultation fee. I don't see why they wouldn't pay it. Both projects also share in license, so I have less of an issue with it personally. They're both MIT licensed.

Their trackrecord is such that if I got a similar call my first question when possible would be how I was being reimbursed. They are welcome to fork anything of mine if they observe the license attached. I will take a look at any PR. I will NOT spend time explaining anything to their engineers unless reimbursed at my regular rates.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#520

Post by istjohn »

WD-42 wrote: post #416
RIMR wrote: post #410

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, the author understands the MIT license, and is upset that the terms of that license aren't being honored. If I were them, I would absolutely feel better getting credit where credit is due. If they wanted a less permissive license, they could have used one.

Did you read the article? The missing attribution is a tiny part of it. That’s not really what the author is complaining about.

> Please don't comment on whether someone read an article. "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be shortened to "The article mentions that".

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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