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0 pointsdiggan1y ago0 comments

If you'd care to be a bit more specific, I might be actually be able to explain something to you.

0 comments

I am genuinely interested: everybody here says that they removed the copyright headers. But when I browse through the Spegel sources, they do not contain a copyright header...

To me it's the Spegel author's fault: there should be a copyright header in every single file, such that Microsoft would have to keep it.

vvillena1y ago

It's in the LICENSE file. With a MIT license, you assign a copyright to the project, or to a certain set of files. The Spegel license attributes copyright to "the Spegel authors", while Peerd attributes it to "Microsoft Corporation".

If some of the peerd code was lifted from Spegel, it's blatant stealing. Code attribution is the only thing a MIT license asks people to honor, and Microsoft couldn't even do that.

whywhywhywhy1y ago

Can’t help but feel no matter what they’d done there would be some route of thought that leads them to wronging the author other than just paying and using the code as is. I don’t know why a corporation would do that though as they likely have their own changes and direction they want for it and working with an unknown 3rd party on that could be a nightmare.

From the authors reaction they chose the wrong license for the project.

palata1y ago

> If some of the peerd code was lifted from Spegel, it's blatant stealing.

Could we say "it's incorrect attribution"?

> and Microsoft couldn't even do that.

Did you consider it may have been done by an engineer who, in good faith, thought they were giving proper credit by adding it to the README? Would you want that engineer fired because of the bad attribution?

It's not like Microsoft is making millions out of this. Sure, they should fix the attribution. It's a mistake.

Most startups/small companies I've seen rely heavily on open source and fail to honour every single licence. This is bad and nobody cares. Here, Microsoft mentioned the project in the README (which is not enough, but not nothing), and I'm pretty sure that they can fix it if someone opens an issue. But overall, companies like Microsoft do honour licences a lot better than startups in my experience.

BigTech is evil for many reasons, but maybe we could consider that this is just an honest mistake.

vvillena1y ago

Of course it was a mistake. In fact, as of 20 minutes ago, the mistake appears to be sorted out, with both the main license file and the offending files sporting new copyright headers.

But corporations hiding behind their workers is a no-go. Corporations get to enjoy their successes, and it's fair to hold them accountable for their failures. Least Microsoft can do is a bit of public comms work detailing what they will do to ensure these mistakes are not repeated in the future.

MyOutfitIsVague1y ago

MIT license doesn't require copyright headers. You need to credit the authors even if the files don't have headers.

palata1y ago

Microsoft does credit the authors on their README. Maybe it's not exactly the right way to do it, but they do it.

Now if it's not the right way to do it, what about opening a PR and asking to change it? Instead of writing a blog post to complain about them?

Now maybe those engineers thought they did well, will get issues internally because of the bad publicity for Microsoft, and next time they want to use an open source project their legal department will be even more of a pain in the ass because if they aren't, then random people on the Internet use that to do bad publicity for the company.

Why not assuming that they are in good faith here? There are enough reasons to hate Microsoft other than this one.

Kubuxu1y ago

The question is who does the copyright belong to in this repository. It is both original author and Microsoft (because they took authors code and modified it). So the License file should mention both.

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MyOutfitIsVague1y ago

They do not credit the authors. They thank them for their "insight". That's very much not credit for copied code.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

palata1y ago

I am genuinely interested: everybody here says that they removed the copyright headers. But when I browse through the Spegel sources, they do not contain a copyright header...

To me it's the Spegel author's fault: there should be a copyright header in every single file, such that Microsoft would have to keep it.

vvillena1y ago

If some of the peerd code was lifted from Spegel, it's blatant stealing. Code attribution is the only thing a MIT license asks people to honor, and Microsoft couldn't even do that.

whywhywhywhy1y ago

From the authors reaction they chose the wrong license for the project.

palata1y ago

> If some of the peerd code was lifted from Spegel, it's blatant stealing.

Could we say "it's incorrect attribution"?

> and Microsoft couldn't even do that.

It's not like Microsoft is making millions out of this. Sure, they should fix the attribution. It's a mistake.

BigTech is evil for many reasons, but maybe we could consider that this is just an honest mistake.

vvillena1y ago

Of course it was a mistake. In fact, as of 20 minutes ago, the mistake appears to be sorted out, with both the main license file and the offending files sporting new copyright headers.

MyOutfitIsVague1y ago

MIT license doesn't require copyright headers. You need to credit the authors even if the files don't have headers.

palata1y ago

Microsoft does credit the authors on their README. Maybe it's not exactly the right way to do it, but they do it.

Now if it's not the right way to do it, what about opening a PR and asking to change it? Instead of writing a blog post to complain about them?

Why not assuming that they are in good faith here? There are enough reasons to hate Microsoft other than this one.

Kubuxu1y ago

1 more reply

MyOutfitIsVague1y ago

They do not credit the authors. They thank them for their "insight". That's very much not credit for copied code.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse