4 ms·

> especially in a country like the US where ending up in court is prohibitively expensive What’s the scenario here where they could take you to court for refus

by latexr 2y ago

> especially in a country like the US where ending up in court is prohibitively expensive What’s the scenario here where they could take you to court for refusing to (in GP’s words) doing charity for them? Scenario 1: Microsoft contacts you and says they want to talk about your open-source project. You never reply. Scenario 2: Microsoft contacts you (…). You reply “thank you, but I’m not interested. You are of course free to contribute or fork within the constraints of the license.” Scenario 3: Microsoft contacts (…). You reply “sure! I charge $X/hour or I could do a flat rate of $Y for the meeting. Is that acceptable to you?” What basis would they have for taking you to court in any situation? As soon as you got a legal letter for any of them, your first step should be to send it to as many news outlets you could think of.

MOARDONGZPLZ 2y ago
“Ending up in court” vs “Microsoft suing you.” I think the implication is that if MS simply decided to unilaterally fork the project and change the license, the OS maintainer’s only real recourse is the court system (and the court of public opinion), and that would be expensive.
- debugnik 2y ago
  Except MS did it anyway: the author cooperated and MS still forked and removed the original copyright notice. Since this isn't the first time MS does this to a FOSS maintainer, it's clear this tactic doesn't help us.
buran77 2y ago
> I felt there was going to be a path forward ripe with cooperation and hopefully a place where I could onboard new maintainers He was hoping for a fruitful collaboration and offered the help towards this goal. MS taking whatever they wanted anyway just proves that they had no intention to cooperate, let alone to pay handsomely for something that was already free. Ending up in court means you need to sue the megacorp to enforce the license. This makes it a free lunch for a megacorp. With every single scenario MS takes whatever they need. They don't have to pay, don't need the help to read code, and you can't afford to force them to respect the license. P.S. > As soon as you got a legal letter for any of them, your first step should be to send it to as many news outlets you could think of. There's a guy rotting away in a El Salvadorian prison with a lot of press to keep him comfort. Not sure your letter will capture the world's attention like you think it will.
hinkley 2y ago
Patent infringement. Microsoft has one of the largest patent portfolios in the world.

by latexr 2y ago

MOARDONGZPLZ 2y ago

“Ending up in court” vs “Microsoft suing you.” I think the implication is that if MS simply decided to unilaterally fork the project and change the license, the OS maintainer’s only real recourse is the court system (and the court of public opinion), and that would be expensive.

debugnik 2y ago
Except MS did it anyway: the author cooperated and MS still forked and removed the original copyright notice. Since this isn't the first time MS does this to a FOSS maintainer, it's clear this tactic doesn't help us.

buran77 2y ago

> I felt there was going to be a path forward ripe with cooperation and hopefully a place where I could onboard new maintainers He was hoping for a fruitful collaboration and offered the help towards this goal. MS taking whatever they wanted anyway just proves that they had no intention to cooperate, let alone to pay handsomely for something that was already free. Ending up in court means you need to sue the megacorp to enforce the license. This makes it a free lunch for a megacorp. With every single scenario MS takes whatever they need. They don't have to pay, don't need the help to read code, and you can't afford to force them to respect the license. P.S. > As soon as you got a legal letter for any of them, your first step should be to send it to as many news outlets you could think of. There's a guy rotting away in a El Salvadorian prison with a lot of press to keep him comfort. Not sure your letter will capture the world's attention like you think it will.

hinkley 2y ago

Patent infringement. Microsoft has one of the largest patent portfolios in the world.