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Comment by hresvelgr | Hacker News Reader

While Microsoft is certainly in the wrong for removing the copyright notice, I think the author has zero basis for complaint otherwise. If you're going to release software with one of the most permissable licenses, you need to accept that for all it entails. Consider what you're comfortable with and pick an appropriate license relative to your values.

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I think it's weird they didn't mention anything about Peerd or their plans on how to use Spegel to the author. They could've atleast said "btw we plan to do xyz" instead of leaving the author fantasizing about a collab.

"fantasizing about a collab" sounds like the world of sneakers, not software. What does that even mean in the world of software?

Dreaming of a contribution from Microsoft

In a reply from an Microsoft employee who's familiar with the situation, some group in Azure wanted support for some Azure-specific APIs. The spegel dev decided that was too far out of their wheelhouse, so they didn't want to add support in spegel for that Azure-specific API. The Azure subteam went ahead and added that support into their fork of spegel.

Other changes removed the spegel project's LICENSE and added in Microsoft's LICENCE file and copyrights on all files.

see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43755745

No legal basis. They still might have an ethical basis regarding Microsoft's behavior, because law != ethics.

If the author has ethical concerns with companies using their work there's a simple way to make that explicit and unambigious – the license. No one can read their mind otherwise.

It's not the first time I see something like this.

The flake8 (MIT license) maintainer is upset that ruff is copying his lints, for example.

I find the whole thing bizarre.

If you consult with someone over their project, then proceed to fork it behind their back, that's just being a dick, even if it was perfectly legal. We should not accept that kind of behavior. And that's even ignoring that the consultation was unpaid and the project was actually even stolen.

> We should not accept that kind of behavior.

What exactly is this supposed to mean? We will not be asked. Only alienated teens care if strangers "accept" them.

The author said that in the last line.

Highlight the part of the essay where he is claiming MS didn't have a right to do what they did.

The point of the article was that MS showed interest in his work, asked him about his designs. Said nothing about internal plans to fork it or use it. Then he shows up to a talk and sees them discussing his work.

Reading between the lines, it is 100% clear they didn't feel like telling him they planned to fork his software, and they danced around it. They didn't reach out to him afterward and say "thanks, we are building a fork and your free time was really useful".

The essay isn't claiming a legal issue. It's pointing out a substantial, practical issue with OSS that didn't exist nearly as prominently in the pre-cloud era: megacorps forking software and cutting out the OG developers.

Licenses communicate your intent; if you choose the most permissive one possible that is also implicitly communicated.

Did they complain about anything else?

Mostly no, but I read the overall piece as a complaint that they got a fork when they were hoping to get a collaborator.

Anyways, the real question should be: what is the most productive form for the project/technology? Separate efforts may not the answer, we're looking for.

I mean, the title is “Getting Forked by Microsoft,” not “Microsoft Removed My Copyright Notice.” They don’t even outright state that the fork is missing the required attribution, you have to infer it.

Yes, he complains in the last few paragraphs that he feels like this form is a competitor. Says that users sometimes come to him asking for help with the Microsoft fork, etc. Those all very much fall into the domain of "what did you think MIT meant exactly", imo at least.

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