this post was submitted on 21 Apr 2025
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Getting Forked by Microsoft (philiplaine.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 78 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

This experience has also made me consider changing the license of Spegel, as it seems to be the only stone I can throw.

Dude used MIT license without knowing why GPL exists, then got upset. If you use MIT, you use it because you absolutely do not care if your work is appropriated by others, especially corporations.

It's like he put furniture on the curb with a "free" sign on it and now is upset his stuff is being sold at an antique store.

He has no reason to be salty because he had in effect told Microsoft to take everything and don't give anything back. So yeah, he should change it to GPL like yesterday. GPL was created because of the problem he has now faced.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 2 weeks ago

IMO, the issue here is that Microsoft appears to have violated the MIT license requiring inclusion of the original author's copyright notice. I think he has every right to be salty about that violation.

In your analogy, the sign on the furniture says:

Free, but if anyone asks, you got this furniture from .

Microsoft took the furniture from the curb, but isn't telling people whom they got it from.

I agree in regards to your opinion that he shouldn't be complaining about the fact that someone forked his project, that just the nature of the MIT license. However, I do think he is justified in being upset that the license was violated. Hopefully this gets remedied; it's not hard nor expensive for Microsoft to add his name to the copyright notice in the license.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

[MIT] does not allow removing the original license and purport that the code was created by someone else.

Sounds like it wouldn't matter which licence he used. Shitty behaviour from Microsoft.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Microsoft's still has MIT license

[–] sik0fewl 51 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

They deleted the original copyright notice which is basically the only requirement of the MIT licence. The software is stolen.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 weeks ago

You're right, that's gone

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

They deleted the original copyright notice which is basically the only requirement of the MIT licence. The software is stolen.

Lol reminds me of a movie...

 [the crew is being told their sweded movies have to be destroyed]

Mr. Rooney: "The FBI Warning is at the beginning of the tape."

Jerry: "But we erased that!"

-- Be Kind, Rewind (2008)

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 weeks ago

I'm on your side but we shouldn't mock op but support him.

[–] sik0fewl 50 points 2 weeks ago

This is not just a case of MIT vs GPL. Microsoft has violated the MIT licence.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 weeks ago

And that kids, is why you don't use the MIT license for stuff you don't want a huge corp to appropriate.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

They added the attribution

https://github.com/avtakkar/peerd/commit/15aa104827b5552d48a7462eef6d040eca2ad582

https://github.com/Azure/peerd/issues/109

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Not specially you, just a comment about the license: OP's problem with attribution is minor. The major problem they have is that Microsoft took his time to get a personal intro to the project, forked it and didn't contribute back. That's what he's unhappy about. That there was no attribution is barely important.

Yes, choosing MIT doesn't require hem to contribute back and it should've been a restrictive opensource license, but it seems he really thought they asked for a call in order to join in on the development.

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Thx for the clarification.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 weeks ago

I feel this is why GPL exists, corporations are wary of copying it or forking it. It is very restrictive, you shouldn't use it if you don't care if the forked project doesn't attribute you or doesn't contribute anything upstream.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

No surprise, MS pulled the exact same thing with AppGet, now WinGet.

At this point, be very wary if MS approaches you for your project.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Does the MS version have stuff that would be incompatible with the original?

If not they made an absolute shitty move.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Luckily there's another shitty move that could force MS to close down the fork: Patenting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

But has the original author the patent?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

No, but they definitely could file one.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Huge cost out of spite is something a person doing open source is unlikely to do.

[–] corsicanguppy 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

We do not code open source software to get rich. We do not retain sole ownership of forks.

We code software because we want to. We license it to allow forking and/or improvements because we want that.

We are not owed anything.

Change the license if you want. Or don't. You don't need to tell us why.

\years coding a security tool, and it was my last project to pass onward.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Humbly, you're wrong; quoting from the article (emphasis mine):

Spegel was published with an MIT license. Software released under an MIT license allows for forking and modifications, without any requirement to contribute these changes back. I default to using the MIT license as it is simple and permissive. The license does not allow removing the original license and purport that the code was created by someone else. It looks as if large parts of the project were copied directly from Spegel without any mention of the original source.

So the author is firstly complaining about the lack of any mentions of the original source (Spegel) in the fork, which is not just a kind thing to do but a legal requirement of the MIT license under which the original source is forked/copied.

If large corporations, in this case Microsoft, are not going to respect the terms of your license in the first place then you don't have much leverage even if you use AGPLv3, a license with much stricter terms.