And note the Microsoft CLA says "you grant Microsoft a patent license covering your contribution", while Microsoft grants no patent licenses over (edit: most) of their open source code, and are currently profiting from patent licenses against open source code in android etc.
When it comes to patents, MIT is a closed source proprietary license, while Apache 2.0 and GPL are open source and free software. All these companies spewing bs about how open MIT is bugs me to no end.
It takes a really warped interpretation of open source to claim MIT is a closed source license. Not even Stallman agrees with that. In his essay on selling exceptions to GPL he gave this argument[0]:
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If that implication is valid, it would also apply to releasing the same program under a noncopyleft free software license, such as the X11 license. That also permits such embedding. So either we have to conclude that it's wrong to release anything under the X11 license -- a conclusion I find unacceptably extreme -- or reject this implication. Using a noncopyleft license is weak, and usually an inferior choice, but it's not wrong.
In other words, selling exceptions permits some embedding in proprietary software, and the X11 license permits even more embedding. If this doesn't make the X11 license unacceptable, it doesn't make selling exceptions unacceptable
"
It seems everyone except you, including the father of copyleft, agrees that the MIT license is a free and open source license.
And many open source developers are just fine with that. If someone finds a use for my code and even if they make lots of money off it then good for them. It's not like they've stopped me from using it in the original form. I've also had cases at work where we want to use open source and copyleft licences have caused clueless managers to get panicky despite the fact that we don't redistribute anything, only make use of it internally. They also often initially tell me not to contribute anything back but after the work is done and I explain multiple times about the effort of porting the changes to subsequent newer releases they agree (often with the proviso of using my personal e-mail). In summary, I don't follow the RMS line of closed source being morally evil or whatever so a license like ISC or MIT is the best practical match to my wishes when I release stuff.
Most of the big MIT licensed Microsoft projects I know (.Net Core VM and libraries) are licensed under MIT with a separate, explicit patent grant. For example look at the PATENTS.TXT file in this repo: https://github.com/dotnet/corefx
Interesting. It's a non-legally binding patent promise. But honestly, I think MS has waded too far into open source to have the bad publicity of breaking that promise, unless MS gets into very bad finances. Anyways, good enough for me.
And it actually makes my point about the MIT license, it's inadequate for patents.
According to these links, they will probably work in an actual case. They can be revoked at any time, making them inapplicable to future patent use which was not already going on for some period of time.
Definitely not anywhere near as binding as the MIT license, but it's not a good comparison anyways, MIT addresses only covers only copyright and patent law is a very different and separate area of law.
When it comes to patents, MIT is a closed source proprietary license, while Apache 2.0 and GPL are open source and free software. All these companies spewing bs about how open MIT is bugs me to no end.