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Getting forked by Microsoft

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Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#951

Post by indymike »

diggan wrote: post #7
benwilber0 wrote: post #5

Don't use one of the most permissive licenses in existence and certainly not one that doesn't provide copyleft. This is all very well established at this point and yet somehow the GPL seems to have gone out of vogue.

> Don't use one of the most permissive licenses in existence Does it matter what license you use if they actively ignore the terms in the license you did chose? MIT requires attribution, but they didn't. Why would any other terms be different? You surely could have put "You must license your project the same as the one you forked from" and they still would have ignored it, not sure what the difference would have been…

>You surely could have put "You must license your project the same as the one you forked from" and they still would have ignored it,

No, they would have found something else that wasn't a pain to steal.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#952

Post by marenkay »

da_chicken wrote: post #709
alphazard wrote: post #653

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's fine that you think corporations are supposed to work that way, and I don't necessarily disagree. But they don't in practice. They don't feel the consequences of bad actions because of legal economies of scale. They also don't backpropagate consequences from the company's bottom line to the individuals responsible. If you were to rectify this so that it works exactly as you envision, you would have made incredib…

I think the point being made is that the executives are either responsible for the company, or they're not actually running the company at all. Like this isn't some tragedy of the commons situation. This isn't some situation where the company is a cooperative confederation of equal partners. Either shit rolls uphill, or you don't have leadership at all. You don't get to pass the buck on criticism because you made a d…

In reality executives are responsible when the company is doing well. When mistakes happen it is either handled by insurance or by firing an employee who was only partially involved.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#953

Post by windward »

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…

Due to some quirks of software developer hiring practices, people write OSS not because they want to write OSS, but because they want the kudos of having written OSS. The downside is someone might use their OSS.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#954

Post by johnisgood »

johnisgood wrote: post #939
xwolfi wrote: post #918

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to prove the mens rea, and even then, people committing crimes don't automatically deserve crimes committed upon them.

In reality they do, in some cases, e.g. capital punishment.

I think I am being misunderstood here. I do not agree with it, I am just referring to practices in some countries.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#955

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

saagarjha wrote: post #865
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I doubt this developer has the money to burn on a lawsuit like that.

The letter is cheap, and there might be law firms willing to fund it for a cut of the profits, making the threat credible.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#956

Post by devnullbrain »

ncr100 wrote: post #849

Hahahahah this sounds very much like what Microsoft did to one of my employers. Meet for a week. Bring in one of their grey beards. Learn all our deets in anticipation of acquisition. Then silence...according to my understanding, not being privy to executive level discussions. A bit later, release their own take on the problem area ... tragic. It was very bad for us.

For the layman, acquisition rumours are almost always bad news.

Even as a premise. Your domain is enough of a concern for Bigcorp to spend executive time on. Bigcorp wants to acquire your employer because and they think they can get more value out of it than the asking price.

Your own executives will ignore the threat that due diligence means to your business in the case a deal fails to be completed, because this is their promotion cycle. But you are a potentially redundant cog that is unlikely to be a more efficient part at Bigcorp. After all, you don’t already work for them.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#957

Post by cycomanic »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #950
tacker2000 wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that you got caught you are fixing it and writing fancy PR fluff. An org the size of MS should have clear policies and processes of how to handle open source forks like this. Unless we assume “bad faith” here. This is a pretty bad look. I wonder how many other projects are not attributed correctly. Are you checking up on them also or just waiting for the next HN post? That said, the author of Spegel should have u…

> Now that you got caught you are fixing it and writing fancy PR fluff. An org the size of MS should have clear policies and processes of how to handle open source forks like this. Unless we assume “bad faith” here. This is a pretty bad look. What would you prefer them do? A public flogging? Bring back the stocks? I agree with the sentiment with these types of comments (I hate PR fluff too), but the aggression when a…

Well how does Microsoft react if some company "forgets" to licence windows/office/some other product? Because that is what happened here a clear licence violation so Microsoft essentially pirated the software.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#958

Post by aydyn »

vb-8448 wrote: post #651
aydyn wrote: post #630

I want to make a point that might be misinterpreted, so I want to make clear I am not at all defending Microsoft. That said, Microsoft isn't a person and has no agency by itself. It is specific persons/developers/managers violating the licenses and stringing along open source developers in bad faith. Who are these people? Why is the blame not falling on them, specifically?

ehm, it doesn't work this way, fortunately ... Microsoft, the corporation, is definitively responsible if there's a copy right violation. Who exactly did what it's a Microsoft internal thing, unless Microsoft demonstrates that this has been done in bad faith and Microsoft did everything what is "reasonable" to avoid this happening ...

It absolutely does work this way.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#959

Post by Vegenoid »

averageRoyalty wrote: post #950
tacker2000 wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Now that you got caught you are fixing it and writing fancy PR fluff. An org the size of MS should have clear policies and processes of how to handle open source forks like this. Unless we assume “bad faith” here. This is a pretty bad look. I wonder how many other projects are not attributed correctly. Are you checking up on them also or just waiting for the next HN post? That said, the author of Spegel should have u…

> Now that you got caught you are fixing it and writing fancy PR fluff. An org the size of MS should have clear policies and processes of how to handle open source forks like this. Unless we assume “bad faith” here. This is a pretty bad look. What would you prefer them do? A public flogging? Bring back the stocks? I agree with the sentiment with these types of comments (I hate PR fluff too), but the aggression when a…

Their plan? “We hear you loud and clear and are going to make sure we improve our processes to help us be better stewards in the open-source community”? That’s not a plan. It’s PR fluff.

Nobody is expecting this one incident to make Microsoft change. It’s about reputation, which can take a long time to shift, but can be important in the long term.

We don’t have to just accept it when a company issues a statement apologizing for their screwup. It’s perfectly acceptable to say “this apology means little to me, and if you want your reputation to change you need to do more”.

Re: Getting forked by Microsoft

#960

Post by anonymousiam »

hinkley wrote: post #599
anonymousiam wrote: post #243

Microsoft has almost always behaved unethically. Many examples similar to yours are easy to find. Their behavior in your case immediately reminded me of this 1994 example: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-02-24-fi-26671-... They've engaged many naive people/companies, milked them of their knowledge after signing NDAs, and then stabbed them in the back, stealing eveything. They're big enough, and have unli…

There’s a Simpsons episode that’s older than many of the readers here where Bill Gates destroys (literally has goons smash) a business Homer accidentally started. If Matt Groening thinks you’re a gaggle of assholes you’re probably even worse.

Good stuff. Been with Matt since "Life In Hell" in the Easy Reader.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Hell

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