4 ms·

Wake me when they GPLv3 something and create a development community around it so that they aren't the sole copyright holder.

Someone1234 11y ago
Arbitrary requirements much. By your own logic if Linux were a Microsoft product that wouldn't be good enough because it is only GPLv2. A lot chunk of the .Net framework are under MIT license and include this: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT Seems pretty comprehensive to me.
- carussell 11y ago
  Distaste for the GPL aside, the second part of GP's comment is on-point. Not sure if you've actually looked at Microsoft's CLA or tried to contribute to any of their projects. The CLA signals that, despite having chosen how their projects are licensed themselves, they don't hold those licenses in high regard. And like most CLAs, it creates a needless barrier to entry and turns away real contributors. (Not that this is actually seen as a big concern within MS—at least it doesn't seem to be. Based on the projects I've been watching, development is very cabalistic [read: top-down] and that they might get some outside contributions because they're open source seems more like a nice also-have rather than an outright goal.) And since you brought up the .NET patent grant, it's hardly comprehensive. It severely limits the practical chances of anybody doing anything with it outside of Microsoft's own .NET Core project and Mono—which is more or less another project under Microsoft control, now that they've acquired Xamarin. All signs point to the .NET patent grant being specifically written to enable Microsoft's very own version of Sun/Oracle's "don't fragment Java" lawsuits. (Especially ironic given that the whole reason C#/.NET came about in the first place is because, in addition to Google being a target because of Android, the only other big target of such a suit was Microsoft themselves because of Visual J++.)
  - Pyxl101 11y ago
    What's wrong with their CLA? Apache requires a CLA as well: https://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt https://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt I think these are just good legal and business a lot of the time. They are the legal protection and audit trail showing that the person really did intend to license their IP.
    - carussell 11y ago
      If only that were why CLAs actually exist. colby@ruta-corsica:~/src/antiholism$ cat ./_drafts/clas.markdown List of open source software projects which used to have CLAs but no longer do: - Neovim ([Keyes]) - Node.js ([Cantrill], [Fontaine]) - Yeoman ([Monge]) List of open source projects that have never used a CLA: - Linux - Mozilla - Swift [Cantrill]: https://www.joyent.com/blog/broadening-node-js-contributions [Fontaine]: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/uncategorized/notes-from-the-road/ [Keyes]: https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/3036 [Monge]: https://github.com/yeoman/yeoman/commit/5661a34df899126f0372d2c70c48f80b2a03a28f All told, CLAs are actually a terrible way to achieve the things they set out to do, except to grant the org additional rights that the existing project license doesn't handle. They're all ritual and guarantee nothing. (It doesn't help that the ritual is friction-inducing and helps turn away contributors, as I said before.) Here's how most CLAs work, including how it works at Microsoft: The org bugs an anonymous contributor about signing the CLA after contributor submits his or her first change, and if sufficiently cajoled, said anonymous contributor sends in the signed CLA and is never bothered again. If the intent is to protect your org by ensuring you don't accept changes that the contributor doesn't have authorization to submit, then the CLA process outlined here is so ineffective against accidental violations that it's not even worth using. And that is to say nothing of deliberate violations. Here are some questions to ask: If I get my employer to sign off on a CLA today, who's checking four years from now to make sure I haven't changed jobs and the whole situation is still kosher? If I wanted to submit changes to a project without getting permission from my employer, how does the CLA stop me from doing that, given that all of them allow an unemployed/underemployed contributor to say that he or she is the only one who owns rights to the code? If I can't be trusted not to copy code from another existing project distributed under a conflicting license, how does the CLA stop me from doing exactly that and just lying about it? If I wanted to sign the CLA with a false identity and submit code using that, how does the CLA stop me? If the CLA is meant to be an assertion that the org is authorized to accept my changes, how is that at all different from the same assertion I make when I publish my fork or my patches under the same license the original project is using? > They are the legal protection and audit trail showing that the person really did intend to license their IP If you want to prove that the contributor really meant to allow you to distribute their changes, then point to the bug where the contributor submitted those changes.

Someone1234 11y ago

Arbitrary requirements much. By your own logic if Linux were a Microsoft product that wouldn't be good enough because it is only GPLv2. A lot chunk of the .Net framework are under MIT license and include this: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/corefx/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT Seems pretty comprehensive to me.

carussell 11y ago
Distaste for the GPL aside, the second part of GP's comment is on-point. Not sure if you've actually looked at Microsoft's CLA or tried to contribute to any of their projects. The CLA signals that, despite having chosen how their projects are licensed themselves, they don't hold those licenses in high regard. And like most CLAs, it creates a needless barrier to entry and turns away real contributors. (Not that this is actually seen as a big concern within MS—at least it doesn't seem to be. Based on the projects I've been watching, development is very cabalistic [read: top-down] and that they might get some outside contributions because they're open source seems more like a nice also-have rather than an outright goal.) And since you brought up the .NET patent grant, it's hardly comprehensive. It severely limits the practical chances of anybody doing anything with it outside of Microsoft's own .NET Core project and Mono—which is more or less another project under Microsoft control, now that they've acquired Xamarin. All signs point to the .NET patent grant being specifically written to enable Microsoft's very own version of Sun/Oracle's "don't fragment Java" lawsuits. (Especially ironic given that the whole reason C#/.NET came about in the first place is because, in addition to Google being a target because of Android, the only other big target of such a suit was Microsoft themselves because of Visual J++.)
- Pyxl101 11y ago
  What's wrong with their CLA? Apache requires a CLA as well: https://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt https://www.apache.org/licenses/icla.txt I think these are just good legal and business a lot of the time. They are the legal protection and audit trail showing that the person really did intend to license their IP.
  - carussell 11y ago
    If only that were why CLAs actually exist. colby@ruta-corsica:~/src/antiholism$ cat ./_drafts/clas.markdown List of open source software projects which used to have CLAs but no longer do: - Neovim ([Keyes]) - Node.js ([Cantrill], [Fontaine]) - Yeoman ([Monge]) List of open source projects that have never used a CLA: - Linux - Mozilla - Swift [Cantrill]: https://www.joyent.com/blog/broadening-node-js-contributions [Fontaine]: https://nodejs.org/en/blog/uncategorized/notes-from-the-road/ [Keyes]: https://github.com/neovim/neovim/issues/3036 [Monge]: https://github.com/yeoman/yeoman/commit/5661a34df899126f0372d2c70c48f80b2a03a28f All told, CLAs are actually a terrible way to achieve the things they set out to do, except to grant the org additional rights that the existing project license doesn't handle. They're all ritual and guarantee nothing. (It doesn't help that the ritual is friction-inducing and helps turn away contributors, as I said before.) Here's how most CLAs work, including how it works at Microsoft: The org bugs an anonymous contributor about signing the CLA after contributor submits his or her first change, and if sufficiently cajoled, said anonymous contributor sends in the signed CLA and is never bothered again. If the intent is to protect your org by ensuring you don't accept changes that the contributor doesn't have authorization to submit, then the CLA process outlined here is so ineffective against accidental violations that it's not even worth using. And that is to say nothing of deliberate violations. Here are some questions to ask: If I get my employer to sign off on a CLA today, who's checking four years from now to make sure I haven't changed jobs and the whole situation is still kosher? If I wanted to submit changes to a project without getting permission from my employer, how does the CLA stop me from doing that, given that all of them allow an unemployed/underemployed contributor to say that he or she is the only one who owns rights to the code? If I can't be trusted not to copy code from another existing project distributed under a conflicting license, how does the CLA stop me from doing exactly that and just lying about it? If I wanted to sign the CLA with a false identity and submit code using that, how does the CLA stop me? If the CLA is meant to be an assertion that the org is authorized to accept my changes, how is that at all different from the same assertion I make when I publish my fork or my patches under the same license the original project is using? > They are the legal protection and audit trail showing that the person really did intend to license their IP If you want to prove that the contributor really meant to allow you to distribute their changes, then point to the bug where the contributor submitted those changes.