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Getting forked by Microsoft

philiplaine.com

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#571

Post by calibas »

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…

It's very simple, the reason people favor a more permissive license is generally the same reason they open source their code: You want other people to use your project.

Obviously, a more permissive license is going to let people do whatever they want with "your" code, as it doesn't really belong to you anymore. If you want tight control then it's a bad choice, but a more permissive license is almost always going to mean your project is more widely used, for better or worse.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#572

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

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…

Hard to word that language to prevent a corporation from forking it, as you have to "fork" the project locally to make modifications and send patches back. I'm sure nobody here wants to stop a random engineer at a corporation from contributing to a community project?

If you want a corporation to avoid it like the plague, just make it GPLv3. If you really want to screw them, go with AGPLv3. This way you keep a true open source license, but don't have to worry about corporate control.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#573

Post by rovr138 »

palata wrote: post #497
rovr138 wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/spegel-org/spegel/blob/main/LICENSE The license doesn't have to be in each file. It's a license for the software. A software is a thing. > Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files > ... > The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software…

Right. So Microsoft should just have a copy of that LICENSE somewhere in their codebase?

No, not somewhere. That’s the license. If they reuse it, they have to use that license.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#574

Post by hinkley »

diggan wrote: post #259
delusional wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that worldview leads to a much poorer world. Normal people aren't constantly engaging in a fight for survival in every aspect of their lives, and I don't think it's a good thing to ask them to. We should expect the people we deal with to be acting in good faith. I think it would be bad actually if I had to consider if you're going to make money off of my idea when talking to you. Asking everybody to be consta…

> Normal people aren't constantly engaging in a fight for survival in every aspect of their lives, and I don't think it's a good thing to ask them to. We should expect the people we deal with to be acting in good faith. I think it would be bad actually if I had to consider if you're going to make money off of my idea when talking to you. I agree with you, if we're talking about people acting as individual humans coll…

A hugely successful megacorporation with a famously competent logistics department can cut a one time check without batting an eye.

You’re not bilking Ed’s Garage, you’re a rounding error on their petty cash account.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#575

Post by warkdarrior »

cestith wrote: post #470
throwaway87464 wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GPL and AGPL don't prevent corporations from plagiarizing your code via AI.

It does make them legally liable for doing so.

[citation needed]

Any court cases supporting this form of liability?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#576

Post by akudha »

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…

The most depressing thing about such behavior from MegaCorp is that they are too lazy to even pretend to care. We meet lots of people in life who would appear sincere, talk sweetly etc, but it is all just a show, just acting. Now it is a different discussion on which is worse (acting like you care or just flat out being a dick) but acting takes some effort. These companies with near infinite money can't be bothered to even put in the slightest bit of effort - how much effort would it be to give a shout out to Keivan when they copied AppGet to make WinGet?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#578

Post by scosman »

ryao wrote: post #268
scosman wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they forked from before the author had a license, it’s worse. MS had no right to use it. I’ve contributed to plenty of project that don’t have the per-file copyrights. It’s a choice not a mistake.

> If they forked from before the author had a license, it’s worse. MS had no right to use it. You are right, provided he did not have a notice saying it was MIT licensed elsewhere. > I’ve contributed to plenty of project that don’t have the per-file copyrights. It’s a choice not a mistake. I would consider it to be both a choice and a mistake. The two are not mutually exclusive. There is no evidence in the fork that…

> There is no evidence in the fork that he is the copyright holder of the original code and it looks like Microsoft is.

Only because they removed the license and copyright. If they were willing to do that in 1 file, they are willing to do it in many. It's not the authors mistake in any way shape or form.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#579

Post by siva7 »

vasco wrote: post #6
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…

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.

Yes, charity. That's exactly what these trillion dollar empires think of those open source maintainers. Microsoft pulled this same stunt multiple times on os maintainers.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#580

Post by hinkley »

latexr wrote: post #89
buran77 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they're hoping not to antagonize the megacorp (too quickly). If a megacorp has you in their sights, especially in a country like the US where court battles are prohibitively expensive, pushing the envelope will just draw ire and aggression from that megacorp. A normal person has no negotiating leverage in front of MS especially when it comes to open source. It's like negotiating with the mafia, you might get…

> 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…

Patent infringement. Microsoft has one of the largest patent portfolios in the world.
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