9 ms·

https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr MIT license

by scott00 11y ago

sergiotapia 11y ago
Checkmate Stallman.
- jgrowl 11y ago
  Not really. I'm a big fan of MIT style licenses, but it also means that Microsoft could at anytime start making proprietary updates. It could mean we could start adopting it and then at some point down the road they could discontinue the open version and start making closed features/updates. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased that this is the direction Microsoft is taking. I am just still very skeptical.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - chc 11y ago
    In fairness, as long as they have copyright assignment from contributors, they could just as well do that with a GPL software.
    - jgrowl 11y ago
      IANAL, but that would essentially require contributors to sign a waiver correct? That seems like a fairly large barrier compared to just being able to take contributors code and incorporate it into a closed project, no?
      - alanctgardner3 11y ago
        All major corporate open source projects have a contributor license agreement (CLA) which contributors must sign. Regardless of whether they intend to close the source in the future or not. See the VLC license change fiasco for why CLAs are very good: http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relicense-a-large-open-source-project-part-2 http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relice...
      - colordrops 11y ago
        If it's GPL or MIT, then it can be forked, and the original owner can't force anyone to sign a waiver. The waiver idea only works as long as the original owner maintains control of the de facto distribution of a project.
    - mikegerwitz 11y ago
      Copyright assignments can preserve freedom if done properly; the FSF's copyright assignment, for example, guarantees that your contributions will always be Free (as in freedom). RMS' rationale in this case was to protect against a scenario in which FSF was overtaken/purchased, so GNU software couldn't be made proprietary.
  - eloff 11y ago
    The GPL doesn't protect against that either. They still own the code, either way, and can make new development closed whenever they want.
    - zobzu 11y ago
      thats a good point - however they can relicense the code you have written on top unless you always give them the copyright
    - robotresearcher 11y ago
      If you have permission of all the copyright holders to release the code under another license. You can't accept patches and then re-license without explicit permission.
      - carussell 11y ago
        The have it. Contributors to .NET Core are required to sign a CLA.
  - dragonwriter 11y ago
    > It could mean we could start adopting it and then at some point down the road they could discontinue the open version and start making closed features/updates. They could do that if it was GPL, too. With MIT or GPL or any other FOSS license, if there is a sufficiently interested party, they can, however, maintain their own version starting with any Microsoft FOSS release; Free software doesn't mean that the original owner can't release proprietary derivatives in the future, it means that what has been released Free can always be used -- and maintained -- as Free software by anyone who wants. Of course, there is a cost to that maintenance role, and you have no guarantee that someone will take it up if the original maintainer drops it or decides to release proprietary software instead. Free software gives you the right to spend your own resources to maintain it, not the entitlement for someone else to maintain it for you indefinitely. MIT vs. GPL is pretty much irrelevant here.
    - nosefrog 11y ago
      What you're saying is correct, MIT vs GPL is irrelevant if Microsoft owns the whole copyright to the project. Contributors to .NET need to assign their copyright to the .NET Foundation (http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/faq http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/faq), which seems impartial but also has a board of 100% Microsoft employees. If .NET were GPL, then only the .NET Foundation would have the power to let others create proprietary extensions, which I guarantee they would give Microsoft.
      - keithba 11y ago
        Miguel de Icaza is on the board and not an MSFT employee.
        nosefrog 11y ago
        You're right. I was under the impression that Microsoft had bought Xaramin.
  - pmontra 11y ago
    No. Having used the MIT license means that Company X can take .NET, make its own modifications, distribute them in binary form and don't share them back as source code with MS or anybody else. Apparently MS isn't afraid about it. MS is the copyright holder so they could make proprietary updates whatever FOSS license they used, GPL v3 included.
narrator 11y ago
How about patent use grants, hmm? If I remember correctly, Microsoft is making a lot of money off of Android by licensing patents.
- carussell 11y ago
  The MIT License arguably protects against patent litigation (in contrast to BSD). People who have an issue with the MIT License (on the patent issue) fall into one of two categories: a) People who've put it in the same category with BSD in their heads at some point, associating with it the same shared caveat about patents, and b) People who understand the distinction between the two but are unsatisfied with how terse it is (especially in contrast to e.g., Apache 2.0). This isn't helped by the fact that the MIT License doesn't actually use the word "patent", and the closest it gets to saying "irrevocable" is "without restriction"/"without limitation". In any case, Microsoft also included a custom patent grant at the time they announced the CLR's availability on GitHub and its new, more agreeable license terms. (Unfortunately it doesn't include the word "irrevocable", either.)
- pionar 11y ago
  https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT
MrBra 11y ago
Pardon my ignorance, but I've never adventured too much into licensing stuff myself, and always had this kind of silly question roaming in my mind: what would happen if someone - after releasing some code open-source with the most permissive license, say on Github - immediately after changed their mind and changed the license back to a very restrictive one and someone had forked the project in that short range of time? Would their forked repository with the permissive license version be a totally legit code repository ? I know this is sounds silly, but I wonder if it's a thing or not that when a software company publicly releases some valuable code open-source, then there is always someone thinking: "better fork this as quick as possible! you never know!" :)
- brc 11y ago
  They can close-source it again, they can't stop you using the open source version they did release. If you have the licence, you have the licence, and it is perpetual. You can't unscramble the egg. There are quite a few products around which fit that type of scenario - where an older, free version is still circulating while the company now distributes a close source paid version.

https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr MIT license

by scott00 11y ago

https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr MIT license

sergiotapia 11y ago

Checkmate Stallman.

jgrowl 11y ago
Not really. I'm a big fan of MIT style licenses, but it also means that Microsoft could at anytime start making proprietary updates. It could mean we could start adopting it and then at some point down the road they could discontinue the open version and start making closed features/updates. Don't get me wrong, I'm very pleased that this is the direction Microsoft is taking. I am just still very skeptical.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- chc 11y ago
  In fairness, as long as they have copyright assignment from contributors, they could just as well do that with a GPL software.
  - jgrowl 11y ago
    IANAL, but that would essentially require contributors to sign a waiver correct? That seems like a fairly large barrier compared to just being able to take contributors code and incorporate it into a closed project, no?
    - alanctgardner3 11y ago
      All major corporate open source projects have a contributor license agreement (CLA) which contributors must sign. Regardless of whether they intend to close the source in the future or not. See the VLC license change fiasco for why CLAs are very good: http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relicense-a-large-open-source-project-part-2 http://www.jbkempf.com/blog/post/2012/How-to-properly-relice...
    - colordrops 11y ago
      If it's GPL or MIT, then it can be forked, and the original owner can't force anyone to sign a waiver. The waiver idea only works as long as the original owner maintains control of the de facto distribution of a project.
  - mikegerwitz 11y ago
    Copyright assignments can preserve freedom if done properly; the FSF's copyright assignment, for example, guarantees that your contributions will always be Free (as in freedom). RMS' rationale in this case was to protect against a scenario in which FSF was overtaken/purchased, so GNU software couldn't be made proprietary.
- eloff 11y ago
  The GPL doesn't protect against that either. They still own the code, either way, and can make new development closed whenever they want.
  - zobzu 11y ago
    thats a good point - however they can relicense the code you have written on top unless you always give them the copyright
  - robotresearcher 11y ago
    If you have permission of all the copyright holders to release the code under another license. You can't accept patches and then re-license without explicit permission.
    - carussell 11y ago
      The have it. Contributors to .NET Core are required to sign a CLA.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > It could mean we could start adopting it and then at some point down the road they could discontinue the open version and start making closed features/updates. They could do that if it was GPL, too. With MIT or GPL or any other FOSS license, if there is a sufficiently interested party, they can, however, maintain their own version starting with any Microsoft FOSS release; Free software doesn't mean that the original owner can't release proprietary derivatives in the future, it means that what has been released Free can always be used -- and maintained -- as Free software by anyone who wants. Of course, there is a cost to that maintenance role, and you have no guarantee that someone will take it up if the original maintainer drops it or decides to release proprietary software instead. Free software gives you the right to spend your own resources to maintain it, not the entitlement for someone else to maintain it for you indefinitely. MIT vs. GPL is pretty much irrelevant here.
  - nosefrog 11y ago
    What you're saying is correct, MIT vs GPL is irrelevant if Microsoft owns the whole copyright to the project. Contributors to .NET need to assign their copyright to the .NET Foundation (http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/faq http://www.dotnetfoundation.org/faq), which seems impartial but also has a board of 100% Microsoft employees. If .NET were GPL, then only the .NET Foundation would have the power to let others create proprietary extensions, which I guarantee they would give Microsoft.
    - keithba 11y ago
      Miguel de Icaza is on the board and not an MSFT employee.
      - nosefrog 11y ago
        You're right. I was under the impression that Microsoft had bought Xaramin.
- pmontra 11y ago
  No. Having used the MIT license means that Company X can take .NET, make its own modifications, distribute them in binary form and don't share them back as source code with MS or anybody else. Apparently MS isn't afraid about it. MS is the copyright holder so they could make proprietary updates whatever FOSS license they used, GPL v3 included.

narrator 11y ago

How about patent use grants, hmm? If I remember correctly, Microsoft is making a lot of money off of Android by licensing patents.

carussell 11y ago
The MIT License arguably protects against patent litigation (in contrast to BSD). People who have an issue with the MIT License (on the patent issue) fall into one of two categories: a) People who've put it in the same category with BSD in their heads at some point, associating with it the same shared caveat about patents, and b) People who understand the distinction between the two but are unsatisfied with how terse it is (especially in contrast to e.g., Apache 2.0). This isn't helped by the fact that the MIT License doesn't actually use the word "patent", and the closest it gets to saying "irrevocable" is "without restriction"/"without limitation". In any case, Microsoft also included a custom patent grant at the time they announced the CLR's availability on GitHub and its new, more agreeable license terms. (Unfortunately it doesn't include the word "irrevocable", either.)
pionar 11y ago
https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT https://github.com/dotnet/coreclr/blob/master/PATENTS.TXT

MrBra 11y ago

Pardon my ignorance, but I've never adventured too much into licensing stuff myself, and always had this kind of silly question roaming in my mind: what would happen if someone - after releasing some code open-source with the most permissive license, say on Github - immediately after changed their mind and changed the license back to a very restrictive one and someone had forked the project in that short range of time? Would their forked repository with the permissive license version be a totally legit code repository ? I know this is sounds silly, but I wonder if it's a thing or not that when a software company publicly releases some valuable code open-source, then there is always someone thinking: "better fork this as quick as possible! you never know!" :)

brc 11y ago
They can close-source it again, they can't stop you using the open source version they did release. If you have the licence, you have the licence, and it is perpetual. You can't unscramble the egg. There are quite a few products around which fit that type of scenario - where an older, free version is still circulating while the company now distributes a close source paid version.