Getting forked by Microsoft (philiplaine.com)

Article summary

The author of the open-source project Spegel claims that Microsoft forked their project without proper attribution, creating a similar project called Peerd. The author had previously discussed potential collaboration with Microsoft, but was unaware of their intentions to create a competing project. The author is considering changing the license of Spegel due to this experience. The incident has raised questions about how open-source maintainers can protect their work when interacting with large corporations.

Main themes

• Open-source licensing
• Corporate ethics
• Intellectual property
• Collaboration and trust
• Power dynamics in open-source development

What commenters say

• The MIT license used by the author does not provide sufficient protection against corporations like Microsoft, which can ignore its terms with impunity.
• Corporations should be treated differently than individual developers, with some arguing that they should be charged more for using open-source software or be subject to different licensing terms.
• The idea of treating all users of open-source software equally, regardless of their financial situation or corporate status, is seen as naive and potentially harmful to the original creators.
• Some argue that open-source maintainers should be paid for their work, especially when it is used by large corporations for commercial purposes.
• Others believe that the license choice is a pre-commitment and that the author should not complain about Microsoft's actions, even if they feel taken advantage of.
• The use of permissive licenses like the MIT license can be seen as a silly precommitment in fields where abusive corporations operate, and copyleft licenses may be a better choice.
• The ability to enforce licenses is crucial, and simply having a license is not enough to protect open-source creators from corporate exploitation.