My point is that Peerd seems like it's loosely based on Spegel. Maybe a fork that was heavily modified. Not sure if they should track all the code that looks like it was not modified enough and attribute it everywhere.
Probably they should keep a copy of the original LICENSE file somewhere, sure. And if one asks politely, maybe they will do it.
Again: they did credit the original project. So it feels a bit aggressive to say that they "stole it without giving any credit".
Fair use allows for commentary, news reporting, criticism, teaching, research, and scholarship and there are guidelines. Most cases where fair use is sought as a defense requires litigation to clear it up. The other alternative when forking an extremely permissive MIT license is to just follow the license.
> Probably they should keep a copy of the original LICENSE file somewhere, sure. And if one asks politely, maybe they will do it.
They are required to do so by the original license of Spegel. Does Microsoft ask politely when people violate MS licensing by say, pirating their software, or do they work with 3 letter agencies and a massive enforcement team to ensure their licenses are followed?
> My point is that Peerd seems like it's loosely based on Spegel. Maybe a fork that was heavily modified. Not sure if they should track all the code that looks like it was not modified enough and attribute it everywhere.
Yes. Every other tech company I have worked at, including Mozilla, a company that publishes almost everything they do as open source, has had folks dedicated to ensuring license compliance.
> Again: they did credit the original project. So it feels a bit aggressive to say that they "stole it without giving any credit".
They didn't provide credit in the way that the license requires. This isn't a case where a new community member forked or copied code into their first open source project. This is one of the biggest companies in the world with a well-known history of taking and using OSS without proper attribution. I like and use many MS products, but they absolutely do not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Next time you work in a big company and you feel that the legal department is a PITA and slows you down, remember how people react when they are not, like here :-).
