4 ms·
In my opinion, this gets a strong reaction because: 1. They made similar mistakes in the past. 2. They didn't fix it for half a year. 3. They can expect stro
by fxtentacle 5y ago
In my opinion, this gets a strong reaction because:
1. They made similar mistakes in the past.
2. They didn't fix it for half a year.
3. They can expect strong financial benefits from making these mistakes.
4. They've recently burned a lot of goodwill by deliberately infringing licenses on a large scale when they trained Copilot.
5. They could have easily prevented this kind of mistakes.
My summary would be that Microsoft deserves to be punished for making this mistake. If nothing bad happens now, then we'll have the same discussion again in half a year from now.
- tptacek 5y agoWhat financial benefits do they stand to gain by changing the name on an MIT license?
- fxtentacle 5y agoIn some cases, they changed other licenses to MIT. That would then allow them to train their AI models on this source code, or redistribute a closed-source monetized GPL rip-off. Team A) makes a mistake and changes the license. Team B) uses the fork under its new license and forgets to check the original branch's license. Two honest mistakes leading to a de-GPL-ed library.
- tptacek 5y agoHere, they're changed the name on an MIT license. What financial benefit do they stand to accrue from doing so? That's the question I'm asking.
- chris_wot 5y agoUm, it changes the ownership? If they wanted to relicense it, then they could say "well, hey, it's our license!".
- tptacek 5y agoThe MIT license puts essentially no restrictions on them that they would need to relicense out from under. They can't un-MIT it. So I'm still not clear on how you propose for them to make money by doing this. Do you have an answer to my question?
- chris_wot 5y agoIf they can change the copyright ownership from an individual to themselves, then they could (however unlikely) change the license on subsequent revisions to no longer provide the software free of charge, and could prevent anyone from using the software and associated documentation files in an unrestricted form.
- m3047 5y agoI think the OP is playing 20 questions for their own entertainment. I think what they're not telling you is that there's nothing to prevent someone from making a closed-source product incorporating something which is MIT licensed (but they're still supposed to give credit where due). That's also not the whole story. Squirrel!
- tptacek 5y agoIf they don't know the answer to the question I actually asked, all they have to do is not answer it. I object to the notion that I'm the one playing games here.
- chris_wot 5y agoIt does seem like you are doing this. I have tried to answer you. Instead of asking questions, just state how you believe I’m wrong. I’m ok with this, if I’ve not understood something or made a mistake, I’m happy to concede. Asking questions until you get an answer you want worked for Socrates, but for everyone else it is better to just state what is wrong about my and other’s argument and the reason why.
- fxtentacle 5y agoI was talking not only about this specific instance of it happening, but Microsoft had similar mistakes throughout the past 6 months. Here's the one from CUPS, a Linux printing library: https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/ad69bcc78bdea3fea3f09fe56674daea821bb407 https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/ad69bcc78bdea3fea3f... It used to be Apache License, then it became "MIT License (c) Microsoft Corporation". Thanks to the attention that this thread got, it has now been fixed: https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/3859d70160010c61fd7a05ecbf23f3b4738e2b9d https://github.com/microsoft/cups/commit/3859d70160010c61fd7... But that source code was online with the wrong license for more than 6 months. Imagine if you had hosted Windows source code with a misattributed MIT license for 6 months... They would also bring out the pitchforks ;) Or even worse: well-paid lawyers.
- tptacek 5y agoI asked what Microsoft had to gain from altering an MIT license. You're answering a different question. But, fine, I'll bite: tell me how Microsoft stood to make a nickel by modifying an Apache license.
- m3047 5y agoThey're asserting ownership. By asserting ownership they're converting good will and assuming the mantle of authority, which will sway plenty of weak-minded people: hey it's Microsoft.
- tptacek 5y agoI see how that gets them a C-grade Mastodon lyric, but not how it gets them a nickel. Did I ask this question in a particularly weird way? The responses it's getting are a little confusing.
- fault1 5y agoalso, never forget CP/M: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ms-dos-examined-for-thef/ https://www.wired.com/2012/08/ms-dos-examined-for-thef/