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Getting forked by Microsoft

philiplaine.com

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#541

Post by ahepp »

saulpw wrote: post #506
YetAnotherNick wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 per…

> 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.

Why doesn't the AGPL fill that role?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#542

Post by firesteelrain »

First, if Microsoft used any of the Spegel code then it should provide proper attribution. A best practice is to put the LICENSE file in the root of project (both peerd and spegel do). But also, you need to put the license in the header of each file as a best practice. Like Microsoft did here https://github.com/Azure/peerd/blob/main/api/docs.go#L1

spegel did not follow best practices to put the copyright in the file itself: https://github.com/spegel-org/spegel/blob/main/internal/web/...

Ideally starting with something like this

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#543

Post by joshuaissac »

BeetleB wrote: post #510
Salgat wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

The MIT licence already requires attribution, and that is what the author picked.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#544

Post by akagusu »

Microsoft doing this is expected, it is what big tech companies do, but what is surprising is the growing number of people defending its behavior and blaming the developer for what happened.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#545

Post by Xelynega »

nu11ptr wrote: post #341
koiueo wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(A)GPLv3 does not prevent their projects from being used. That's the point! GPL family of licenses would've made a difference in this aspect for libraries (because afair if you link to GPL code, you must be GPL). But for an app? You can use it, fork it, modify it... Just make sure you make your changes available under the same license. Seems very fair to me.

I won't use GPL libraries in my code. I'm quite confident I'm not the only one. If there was no other choice, I may consider something LGPL or with the linking exception, but not until I had exhausted a search for something more permissive. To this day, I've never used GPL in any of my code, open source or closed. I've been writing code for 35 years daily.

> I won't use GPL libraries in my code.

Why? Do you also avoid libraries with an even number of consonants in the name?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#546

Post by cschep »

Beltiras wrote: post #519
giancarlostoro wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I hope by regular rates you mean your Enterprise rate that is 10-50x your regular rate. :)

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#547

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

ryao wrote: post #263
boxed wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It says "copyright microsoft" in that license file. Just because THAT file is MIT is irrelevant. They didn't retain the original license file. They should have APPENDED to it, keeping the original copyright holder name, otherwise it's just blatant copyright infringement that coincidentally is released under the same license.

I am not a lawyer, but I imagine a lawyer would find it alright if they just restore the missing notice. I do not imagine there is much else that can be done here since he cannot really claim to have been significantly damaged by the absence of a single line, but these matters are best discussed with attorneys.

I imagine a lawyer sending them a settlement offer for the blatant copyright violation they committed would get them to settle for a five-digit amount, since just the cost of discovery (and potentially having the "let's just fork it" dirty email laundry aired in public court) would be much higher.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#548

Post by tedivm »

palata wrote: post #503
tedivm wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

What you're proposing, updating the license file to list the authors, is a pretty common way to do this. It does mean that the code is mixed a bit, so it would be hard to split who owns what, but this is only relevant if one of the copyright owners wants to change the license (as they can legally only do that to the code they own).

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#550

Post by chungy »

trelane wrote: post #400
zamadatix wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Change "use" to "distribute" (what the license cares about) and you're bang on.

This is a huge difference. The GPL and its flavor are explicitly not about use . They place zero restrictions on use. Unlike, say, just about all proprietary software. It only governs distribution and especially prevents distributors from locking their users in, and from placing restrictions on their users' use of the software.

If you count AGPLv3 as a "flavor" of GPL, then it absolutely does place restrictions on use.
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