9 ms·

A lot of commenters are sharpening their pitchforks, but this comment, in my opinion, makes it very likely that it was an honest mistake. Amazing what taking pe

A lot of commenters are sharpening their pitchforks, but this comment, in my opinion, makes it very likely that it was an honest mistake. Amazing what taking personal responsibility and earnestly apologizing can do to restore trust and credibility!

tptacek 5y ago
It was obviously a mistake. Still nice to have someone involved give the backstory.
- sharken 5y ago
  Yes, very nice writeup from Microsoft. Had a similar experience with AzureCli v2.30, where the environment variable to ignore certificate errors suddenly did not work anymore. It turned out it was removed but there was no mention of it in the release notes. On the GitHub page quick response was provided by Microsoft.
beckman466 5y ago
_zzaw 5y ago
Yeah, I think this is an example of addressing a mistake that other companies should take note of. I don’t trust Microsoft-sized corporations as a matter of principle, and I don’t typically give them the benefit of the doubt, but when one of their own engineers explains in human-readable terms what specifically happened—on a holiday, no less—I’m impressed enough to believe him. Some PR flack showing up with vague boilerplate about how Microsoft values the open-source community and they’ll look into it would only have encouraged more outrage. I always appreciate communication that acknowledges I’m a person, not a data point or a customer. I wish more companies ditched the greasy PR approach and allowed folks like Jeff to do their talking for them.
- victorvscn 5y ago
  - itzprime 5y ago
    How has Microsoft reformed? Windows 11 is more intrusive than ever, it changes default programms more frequently to their desired programms and it is so annyoing to switch browser. THey still are the same old.
- Debug_Overload 5y ago
  - laserbeam 5y ago
    Alright... What is a proper response to an honest mistake in your book? We have links to a bug, explanation of what happened, a clear response (that they will check to see if this happened on other forks), they reversed the change... Unsure why the bar would need to be higher. This is all reasonable given the circumstances.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    An engineer who can write straightforwardly is worth 100 PR people in situations like this. They're not paid like that, but they are worth that.
    - _zzaw 5y ago
      Fully agreed. And yeah, when it comes to my expectations as far as how large companies respond to embarrassments, the bar is about as low as it gets. A tone-deaf non-apology that sounds like a robot wrote it is what I expect to hear, and I’m almost invariably right. And that offends me. The idea that someone thinks I’d be convinced by such a response—that I’d find it persuasive and acceptable—is fucking insulting. So when the guy who’s actually responsible for the mistake—and not some polished corporate drone—actually shows up in the comments section, explains what happened, and talks to me the way one of my colleagues would: yeah, that is above and beyond by most standards, certainly the ones I have for evil empires like FAAN(M)G companies, and I give major credit for that.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> makes it very likely that it was an honest mistake. I don’t have any doubt that it was an honest mistake. They also took accountability for the mistake, shared their steps to prevent it from happening again, and they’re in contact with the original repo author directly. At this point, anyone digging for excuses to further demonize Microsoft isn’t interested in honest discussion about this issue. This is a textbook mistake followed by rapid resolution (on Christmas Day, no less), with great communication on top.
- scorpio241 5y ago
  Here in "honest mistake" they try to patent somebody's method: https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/13/microsoft_ans_patent/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/13/microsoft_ans_patent/
HugoDaniel 5y ago
- dang 5y ago
  Could you please stop breaking the site guidelines? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly in your HN comments. People are supposed to get the benefit of the doubt here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - HugoDaniel 5y ago
hawski 5y ago
In a way I'm glad that this is not taken lightly. We all need to be informed and calm, but mega-corporations should be held to higher standards. They should feel breath of an angry mob once in a while. I imagine, that if reactions to things like that would be just "meh, it's probably just a mistake" it would not be resolved as quickly or it could just be ignored. But now that it is all cleared up let's go home and Merry Christmas.
throwaway82931 5y ago
- novok 5y ago
  Lets also get rid of web search engines while we are at it, or transparent caching CDNs /s
  - throwaway82931 5y ago
    Web search engines claim fair use for snippets, and MS claims fair use for Copilot. However, a web search engine result page is only an aggregate of the excerpted pages, and it refers back to them; unlike software authored using Copilot, it does not draw those snippets together into a coherent purposeful whole, strip all reference to the original author. and claim complete originality. That MS went ahead with training Copilot on open source code authored by people who are clearly not OK with it is why they are so short on goodwill.
    - 32ry8we7ahui3 5y ago
      Why is Copilot any different from a human doing essentially the same thing? Complete originality doesn't exist. I think the people who are complaining about Copilot have likely done the same thing themselves. I can't erase the memory of all the code I have read and written that somebody else 'own' the copyright to, so my brain will subconsciously use copyrighted code when writing software.
      - cycomanic 5y ago
        Because copilot is not a human and can do things that humans can't. Moreover I encourage you to learn music pieces by listening to them and then selling/giving away snippets. You will have big corporations on your heels fairly quickly even though you are a human.
- barnabee 5y ago
  I’d rather we all ceased the collective regressive delusion that is copyright. There are other ways to make sure artists and inventors can eat than by using the threat of violence to make the unscarce scarce.
laumars 5y ago
If you read the comments, most people believed it was an honest mistake. What we didn’t agree with was that it was an excusable mistake. Microsoft have since acknowledged it’s not excusable and thus will rectify that error. So as far as I see it, all parties, both for and against MS, should be satisfied with the outcome.
unbanned 5y ago
prvc 5y ago
Intent is a red herring, especially when the actions of an organization, rather than an individual are being considered. More important are the actions' consequences and the organization's propensity for repeating them.
noobermin 5y ago
Honestly, doing this all on Christmas nonetheless. This sort of thing is why I never want to be in leadership roles.
indrora 5y ago
A phrase I've come to appreciate: > Prescribe not to malice that which may well be a buggy edge case.

tptacek 5y ago

It was obviously a mistake. Still nice to have someone involved give the backstory.

sharken 5y ago
Yes, very nice writeup from Microsoft. Had a similar experience with AzureCli v2.30, where the environment variable to ignore certificate errors suddenly did not work anymore. It turned out it was removed but there was no mention of it in the release notes. On the GitHub page quick response was provided by Microsoft.

beckman466 5y ago

_zzaw 5y ago

Yeah, I think this is an example of addressing a mistake that other companies should take note of. I don’t trust Microsoft-sized corporations as a matter of principle, and I don’t typically give them the benefit of the doubt, but when one of their own engineers explains in human-readable terms what specifically happened—on a holiday, no less—I’m impressed enough to believe him. Some PR flack showing up with vague boilerplate about how Microsoft values the open-source community and they’ll look into it would only have encouraged more outrage. I always appreciate communication that acknowledges I’m a person, not a data point or a customer. I wish more companies ditched the greasy PR approach and allowed folks like Jeff to do their talking for them.

victorvscn 5y ago
- itzprime 5y ago
  How has Microsoft reformed? Windows 11 is more intrusive than ever, it changes default programms more frequently to their desired programms and it is so annyoing to switch browser. THey still are the same old.
Debug_Overload 5y ago
- laserbeam 5y ago
  Alright... What is a proper response to an honest mistake in your book? We have links to a bug, explanation of what happened, a clear response (that they will check to see if this happened on other forks), they reversed the change... Unsure why the bar would need to be higher. This is all reasonable given the circumstances.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  An engineer who can write straightforwardly is worth 100 PR people in situations like this. They're not paid like that, but they are worth that.
  - _zzaw 5y ago
    Fully agreed. And yeah, when it comes to my expectations as far as how large companies respond to embarrassments, the bar is about as low as it gets. A tone-deaf non-apology that sounds like a robot wrote it is what I expect to hear, and I’m almost invariably right. And that offends me. The idea that someone thinks I’d be convinced by such a response—that I’d find it persuasive and acceptable—is fucking insulting. So when the guy who’s actually responsible for the mistake—and not some polished corporate drone—actually shows up in the comments section, explains what happened, and talks to me the way one of my colleagues would: yeah, that is above and beyond by most standards, certainly the ones I have for evil empires like FAAN(M)G companies, and I give major credit for that.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> makes it very likely that it was an honest mistake. I don’t have any doubt that it was an honest mistake. They also took accountability for the mistake, shared their steps to prevent it from happening again, and they’re in contact with the original repo author directly. At this point, anyone digging for excuses to further demonize Microsoft isn’t interested in honest discussion about this issue. This is a textbook mistake followed by rapid resolution (on Christmas Day, no less), with great communication on top.

scorpio241 5y ago
Here in "honest mistake" they try to patent somebody's method: https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/13/microsoft_ans_patent/ https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/13/microsoft_ans_patent/

HugoDaniel 5y ago

dang 5y ago
Could you please stop breaking the site guidelines? You've unfortunately been doing it repeatedly in your HN comments. People are supposed to get the benefit of the doubt here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- HugoDaniel 5y ago

hawski 5y ago

In a way I'm glad that this is not taken lightly. We all need to be informed and calm, but mega-corporations should be held to higher standards. They should feel breath of an angry mob once in a while. I imagine, that if reactions to things like that would be just "meh, it's probably just a mistake" it would not be resolved as quickly or it could just be ignored. But now that it is all cleared up let's go home and Merry Christmas.

throwaway82931 5y ago

novok 5y ago
Lets also get rid of web search engines while we are at it, or transparent caching CDNs /s
- throwaway82931 5y ago
  Web search engines claim fair use for snippets, and MS claims fair use for Copilot. However, a web search engine result page is only an aggregate of the excerpted pages, and it refers back to them; unlike software authored using Copilot, it does not draw those snippets together into a coherent purposeful whole, strip all reference to the original author. and claim complete originality. That MS went ahead with training Copilot on open source code authored by people who are clearly not OK with it is why they are so short on goodwill.
  - 32ry8we7ahui3 5y ago
    Why is Copilot any different from a human doing essentially the same thing? Complete originality doesn't exist. I think the people who are complaining about Copilot have likely done the same thing themselves. I can't erase the memory of all the code I have read and written that somebody else 'own' the copyright to, so my brain will subconsciously use copyrighted code when writing software.
    - cycomanic 5y ago
      Because copilot is not a human and can do things that humans can't. Moreover I encourage you to learn music pieces by listening to them and then selling/giving away snippets. You will have big corporations on your heels fairly quickly even though you are a human.
barnabee 5y ago
I’d rather we all ceased the collective regressive delusion that is copyright. There are other ways to make sure artists and inventors can eat than by using the threat of violence to make the unscarce scarce.

laumars 5y ago

If you read the comments, most people believed it was an honest mistake. What we didn’t agree with was that it was an excusable mistake. Microsoft have since acknowledged it’s not excusable and thus will rectify that error. So as far as I see it, all parties, both for and against MS, should be satisfied with the outcome.

unbanned 5y ago

prvc 5y ago

Intent is a red herring, especially when the actions of an organization, rather than an individual are being considered. More important are the actions' consequences and the organization's propensity for repeating them.

noobermin 5y ago

Honestly, doing this all on Christmas nonetheless. This sort of thing is why I never want to be in leadership roles.

indrora 5y ago

A phrase I've come to appreciate: > Prescribe not to malice that which may well be a buggy edge case.