4 ms·
This article is pure ignorance, and would have played much better as a Slashdot comment. Forking is the underlying source of freedom in open source software --
by nkohari 17y ago
This article is pure ignorance, and would have played much better as a Slashdot comment.
Forking is the underlying source of freedom in open source software -- if you don't like something the current managers of a project are doing, fork it.
If your open source code is licensed under a non-copyleft license like Apache or BSD, Microsoft (or any other entity) can fork it and use it commercially regardless of whether you are a member of the CodePlex foundation.
The CodePlex foundation asks that member projects assign the copyright to the foundation to allow them to defend its intellectual property from a legal perspective. Through the right to fork, open source licenses ensure that the code itself is owned by the community-at-large, and whether the CodePlex foundation "owns" the code from a legal perspective is meaningless.
I understand people being skeptical given Microsoft's checkered past with open source, but at least give them a chance to prove that they've changed.
- rbanffy 17y ago"I understand people being skeptical given Microsoft's checkered past with open source, but at least give them a chance to prove that they've changed." No. ;-)
- der_ketzer 17y ago"My husband is a drunkard and when he drinks he beats me, but he has promised me he will change". Microsoft hasn't and will not change. It's in the DNA of Microsoft to be the way it is. And some bunnies and a little girl in a Windows 7 ad is not a sign of change. A couple days ago there was an article of Steve Ballmer harrasing an employee because of an IPhone, if that's the way you treat your employees, what can the customers expect.
- nkohari 17y agoWindows 7 ads and Steve Ballmer being an asshole have nothing to do with open source software.
- halo 17y agoI have a problem with these sorts of posts, but I struggle to articulate it, so I'm going to quote an insightful Reddit comment (http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/9k3ss/mattel_sued_aqua_back_in_late_90s_over_barbie/c0d3fgb http://www.reddit.com/r/WTF/comments/9k3ss/mattel_sued_aqua_...): They're a corporation, a large group of people pursuing profit on behalf of an even larger group of shareholders, with its members constantly being replaced. These associations don't possess philosophical consistency. They only appear to when the illusion aids in profitability. I also suspect the Ballmer iPhone incident was him simply joking about rather than any actual harassment.
- eru 17y agoPlease keep principal-agent-conflicts in mind.
- StrawberryFrog 17y agoMicrosoft hasn't and will not change So when given clear indications of change occurring (codeplex.com, codeplex.org ), your response is what? Just denial, or is there more to what you are saying? FWIW, I disagree in general, Some things in Microsoft are clearly changing, particularly the processes of the developer tools division are much more open and community-involving than they were a few years ago. Hence. codeplex. Other things that people think of as "Microsoft", like Office and Windows releases - not so much change I suppose. As to if Microsoft actually has changed with regards open-sourcing some things that run on their IIS/.Net technology stack, I don't know enough yet. I do know that my views will be lead by what's happening, not by stale dogma that's counter to evidence.