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Getting forked by Microsoft

philiplaine.com

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#61

Post by Zambyte »

skywhopper wrote: post #42
Zambyte wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copied, not stole. It's unfortunate that the two are so often conflated.

Leaving off the attribution makes it stolen. They stole credit for the code, in violation of its license.

No it doesn't. It makes it copied without authorization. Stolen means the original owner does not have access which is not the case[0]. This idea that copying is theft was propaganda invented by the MPA[1], and we ought to stop parroting it, even when it's Microsoft doing the unauthorized copying.

[0] https://github.com/spegel-org/spegel

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Wouldn%27t_Steal_a_Car

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#62

Post by ABS »

znpy wrote: post #33

> Spegel was published with an MIT license. Software released under an MIT license allows for forking and modifications, without any requirement to contribute these changes back. If that's what the license says, why is the author complaining? Microsoft is complying with the license. That's what you get for not picking the one of the license from the GPL family. > However, I am not the first and unfortunately not the…

if only you had kept reading 2 more sentences after the one you quoted you'd know:

  "The license does not allow removing the original license and purport that the code was created by someone else. It looks as if large parts of the project were copied directly from Spegel without any mention of the original source"

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#63

Post by pyfon »

kstrauser wrote: post #49
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…

I released a fun personal project under GPLv3 and the first filed issue was someone saying I should change the license to something friendlier to business interests. Hell no. If they want to profit off my work, pay me. This is something I'm doing for fun, on my own terms. It’s Free for anyone to use as they want, so long as they keep it Free, too.

At this point I'd include some of the code as binary blobs and "pay me for the source!". In addition to GPL!

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#65

Post by hobs »

I actually worked on an open source project, the maintainer was convinced by microsoft to relicense the project for "collaboration" - I left the project for this reason and as far as I can tell msft never did anything for them except for keep giving them the "honor" of being a microsoft mvp.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#66

Post by ryao »

hardwaresofton wrote: post #56
phillebaba wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this. It seems to be one of the licenses out there that scares the big three cloud providers.

And just to be really clear -- it's not actually a solution to cloud providers not reusing the code for profit (which I assume is the context you're implying, could be wrong here), because AGPL is free software, so people are free to reuse your code for commercial purposes. AGPL at least prevents making private improvements to open source networked code without contributing back. I think in this situation it might ha…

The AGPL doesn't require them to contribute back. It only requires them to provide the code to end users upon request. No license as far as I know requires people to contribute back.

In many cases, project maintainers would not want the changed code anyway because it does not align with their vision for how things should be done. Linus Torvalds and his subsystem maintainers, for example, do not want people to send them code dumps containing the hacks people have done to private Linux source trees. They want proper commits that are done well and have been modified to comply with any feedback that they provide.

What the project maintainer here wanted were collaborators who would work with him as a team (which is not much different than what most OSS developers what), but no license requires that and it is rare to get that.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#67

Post by bayindirh »

throwaway277432 wrote: post #51
bayindirh wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no writing in that license which I can't change the copyright after forking the code. There's a copyright line, check. There's the permission notice, check. The rest is just goodwill and ethics, which is not a very valuable currency in software in these days.

No! Once you change the copyright line, you no longer include "the above copyright notice". At that point you're violating the license. You are also not allowed to change the copyright notice or license text in any way (you may however add to the license, which is a loophole other licenses such as GPL fix.) Substantial is subject to (legal) debate as the Oracle vs. MS case has shown. Whole functions or large parts of…

> I'm seriously flabbergasted at how bad reading comprehension seems to be among coders.

Sorry to deflate your amazement, but I made the remark because I have never seen a permissively licensed repository which changed hands and had multiple copyright lines in the last 20 years or so.

Maybe it's not my reading comprehension (and English is not my native language to begin with), but the behaviors of other coders to begin with.

Maybe we shouldn't point fingers to others and not forget that three are pointing towards ourselves. Eh?

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#68

Post by keepamovin »

freeamz wrote: post #57
keepamovin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just a megacorp. Anyone for a commercial purpose

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.

Why, if they are paying their employees and aim to earn from their enterprise, should so disrespect your time and IP as to attempt to not pay you?

Tho pricing tailored to customers works, as long as it's efficient and non-zero.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#70

Post by nicoburns »

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…

> what's the incentive for authors of one-man projects to choose anything "permissive".

The incentive is generally that people enjoy having their projects used, be that by commercial companies or otherwise.

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