4 ms·

"open sourced a product and released it for free but it's not what I like" Open sourced a product and released a different product that has built-in tracking,

"open sourced a product and released it for free but it's not what I like" Open sourced a product and released a different product that has built-in tracking, is a walled garden for extensions and who knows what else. An elaborate fraud.

djbusby 3y ago
Where is the fraud?
- wheelerof4te 3y ago
  Let us imagine there is one chocolate product. The producer gives you two options to aquire that chocolate. First option is a pile of ingredients, a plain plastic wrapper and a recipe. You are obviously required to make the chocolate yourself, but what you get is the original chocolate as advocated by the company. Second option is a finished product that has a pretty decorated package and tastes a bit different than original chocolate. You can't quite put your finger on why, but at least you don't have to make it yourself! Maybe "fraud" is a bit too strong word. We could go with "consumer deceit" instead.
  - teo_zero 3y ago
    Sorry, but we face this every single day, with every single industrial food that include extra ingredients (e.g. preservatives) wrt to old granny's classic recipe and we don't call it "consumer deceit". It would be a fraud if the label on the product you buy omitted some ingredients, but it's not the case here: Microsoft doesn't claim its binaries are the result of a vanilla make on their source!
paulryanrogers 3y ago
They don't claim to be entirely open, and open isn't a regulated term regardless.
- stonogo 3y ago
  Being within the bounds of literal and legal correctness and acting like an asshole, it turns out, are not incompatible!
  - paulryanrogers 3y ago
    I don't see this as asshole behavior. They're giving away an overwhelming amount for free, which the community or a competitor can build upon at any time. This project being an example. For those who find the closed capabilities and extensions distasteful there is opportunity to make their own.
    - stonogo 3y ago
      I've got several decades of experience with the things Microsoft has given away for free. I consider this to be an (entirely on-brand and consistent) asshole move, part of the same EEE cycle we've been through a dozen times with a dozen product lines. It's enough to keep me off even the open-source rebuild of the product.
bmitc 3y ago
https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry The point of this comment is that the telemetry is documented and able to be disabled.
- rstat1 3y ago
  People don't really care about facts. Only the next thing to be outraged by.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
This is literally what the MIT license is for: it lets people take the source code, modify it, and then distribute that. As a paid product even, if that's what you want to do. This isn't fraud, this is literally MS going "here's the MIT licensed version, and here's our own variant of that, based on obeying that license." And then they go one step further and say "We're not going to tell you that only our product exists, we are explicitly telling you where to get the MIT licensed source code, which isn't even an MIT license requirement". This is exactly what good open source practices look like.
- mcpackieh 3y ago
  It's a typical and completely compliant way to use the MIT license, but good open source practice? I don't think so. The MIT license permitting this sort of thing is why I and many others consider the MIT license to be a "cuck license": > A Cuck License is a permissive software license that that does not enforce the freedom of derivative works. This means that anyone can take software licensed under a Cuck License and turn it into proprietary software, effectively cucking the original author. > Examples of Cuck Licenses are the MIT license and BSD license. > Cuck License consequences: > There have been instances where developers's usage of Cuck Licenses has backfired. One notable example is Andrew Tanenbaum' MINIX, which got taken by Intel and turned into spyware called the Intel Management Engine. Tanenbaum went on to say: > "Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to." > However, Tanenbaum maintains that he made the correct choice licensing MINIX under the 3-clause BSD License. https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Cuck_license https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Cuck_license
  - bmitc 3y ago
    That's implying that GPL is the only good license?
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
jzb 3y ago
The source is available. You have the right to fork it. If there’s something in the propriety release that’s harmful, you might have a case - but all Microsoft is doing here is counting on people being willing to consume the builds rather than coming together to use the source code. Basically: Microsoft is betting that people care more about free as in beer than exercising software freedom. So far, they seem to be correct.

djbusby 3y ago

Where is the fraud?

wheelerof4te 3y ago
Let us imagine there is one chocolate product. The producer gives you two options to aquire that chocolate. First option is a pile of ingredients, a plain plastic wrapper and a recipe. You are obviously required to make the chocolate yourself, but what you get is the original chocolate as advocated by the company. Second option is a finished product that has a pretty decorated package and tastes a bit different than original chocolate. You can't quite put your finger on why, but at least you don't have to make it yourself! Maybe "fraud" is a bit too strong word. We could go with "consumer deceit" instead.
- teo_zero 3y ago
  Sorry, but we face this every single day, with every single industrial food that include extra ingredients (e.g. preservatives) wrt to old granny's classic recipe and we don't call it "consumer deceit". It would be a fraud if the label on the product you buy omitted some ingredients, but it's not the case here: Microsoft doesn't claim its binaries are the result of a vanilla make on their source!

paulryanrogers 3y ago

They don't claim to be entirely open, and open isn't a regulated term regardless.

stonogo 3y ago
Being within the bounds of literal and legal correctness and acting like an asshole, it turns out, are not incompatible!
- paulryanrogers 3y ago
  I don't see this as asshole behavior. They're giving away an overwhelming amount for free, which the community or a competitor can build upon at any time. This project being an example. For those who find the closed capabilities and extensions distasteful there is opportunity to make their own.
  - stonogo 3y ago
    I've got several decades of experience with the things Microsoft has given away for free. I consider this to be an (entirely on-brand and consistent) asshole move, part of the same EEE cycle we've been through a dozen times with a dozen product lines. It's enough to keep me off even the open-source rebuild of the product.

bmitc 3y ago

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry The point of this comment is that the telemetry is documented and able to be disabled.

rstat1 3y ago
People don't really care about facts. Only the next thing to be outraged by.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

This is literally what the MIT license is for: it lets people take the source code, modify it, and then distribute that. As a paid product even, if that's what you want to do. This isn't fraud, this is literally MS going "here's the MIT licensed version, and here's our own variant of that, based on obeying that license." And then they go one step further and say "We're not going to tell you that only our product exists, we are explicitly telling you where to get the MIT licensed source code, which isn't even an MIT license requirement". This is exactly what good open source practices look like.

mcpackieh 3y ago
It's a typical and completely compliant way to use the MIT license, but good open source practice? I don't think so. The MIT license permitting this sort of thing is why I and many others consider the MIT license to be a "cuck license": > A Cuck License is a permissive software license that that does not enforce the freedom of derivative works. This means that anyone can take software licensed under a Cuck License and turn it into proprietary software, effectively cucking the original author. > Examples of Cuck Licenses are the MIT license and BSD license. > Cuck License consequences: > There have been instances where developers's usage of Cuck Licenses has backfired. One notable example is Andrew Tanenbaum' MINIX, which got taken by Intel and turned into spyware called the Intel Management Engine. Tanenbaum went on to say: > "Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to." > However, Tanenbaum maintains that he made the correct choice licensing MINIX under the 3-clause BSD License. https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Cuck_license https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Cuck_license
- bmitc 3y ago
  That's implying that GPL is the only good license?
  - mcpackieh 3y ago

jzb 3y ago

The source is available. You have the right to fork it. If there’s something in the propriety release that’s harmful, you might have a case - but all Microsoft is doing here is counting on people being willing to consume the builds rather than coming together to use the source code. Basically: Microsoft is betting that people care more about free as in beer than exercising software freedom. So far, they seem to be correct.