It's a typical and completely compliant way to use the MIT license, but good open source practice? I don't think so. The MIT license permitting this sort of thing is why I and many others consider the MIT license to be a "cuck license":
> A Cuck License is a permissive software license that that does not enforce the freedom of derivative works. This means that anyone can take software licensed under a Cuck License and turn it into proprietary software, effectively cucking the original author.
> Examples of Cuck Licenses are the MIT license and BSD license.
> Cuck License consequences:
> There have been instances where developers's usage of Cuck Licenses has backfired. One notable example is Andrew Tanenbaum' MINIX, which got taken by Intel and turned into spyware called the Intel Management Engine. Tanenbaum went on to say:
> "Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to."
> However, Tanenbaum maintains that he made the correct choice licensing MINIX under the 3-clause BSD License.
Ok, the MIT license can backfire and damage the author. But it doesn't damage those who receive the software. So why do you resent Microsoft releasing their own software with the MIT license? They expose themselves to the risk that someone else takes their code, adds some extra feature and sells it for a profit. Microsoft acts against its own interests, so what's dishonest in this?
No, any copyleft license is a better open source license. In fact, proprietary licenses are better as well; with MIT or BSD licenses you are writing code that a corporation will make proprietary, effectively writing proprietary code for them, except you don't get paid for it. It would be better to use a proprietary license and get paid than to use the BSD/MIT license, have your code turned into that same proprietary product, and not even get paid for it.
Even giving your code to the public domain is better than an MIT or BSD license; corporations will still be able to make it proprietary but at least it clears the air around the 'interesting question' of mixing MIT/BSD code into a copyleft project and distributing the whole lot under a copyleft license.
That's pretty naive. If we are talking about individual developers, big companies like Microsoft can blatantly use your GPL code in their proprietary code and you will have no money to fight them in court anyways. If it's big company deliberately choosing MIT/BSD for their open source project, they don't need your lecture. They have their own lawyers to tell them what license benefit the most.
> Even giving your code to the public domain is better than an MIT or BSD license
Maybe in the US, but much of the world doesn't recognise waving away all author rights voluntarily. The closest thing to worldwide public domain is probably the Creative Commons Zero licence.
Pretty much only corporations get themselves in a twist over that technicality, so what's the problem? Community FOSS projects don't worry about buying a license to SQLite, but the corporations with their lawyers do. This makes public domain even better.
I'm serious, how many German individuals do you think would refuse to install sqlite on their personal computer because they lack a technically valid license for it? A few such weirdos doubtlessly exist but you can safely ignore them.
The risk is not "I don't have a license because public domain doesn't exist", the risk is "the rights I have are revokable on a whim because they haven't properly waived their right to do so".
SQLite has a good track record but I can imagine another strongly religious developer taking advantage of authorship rights to damage some small EU-based social organization they strongly disagreed with; just an example.
As for the weirdos, as I said SQLite has a good track record, but I'd think twice over a much smaller dependency. However, I've seen enough disregard for FOSS licenses in business to know the weirdos are few. I guess you either care about license minutae or you don't.
Either you care about licenses, in which case you care about that technicality, or you don't care about licenses, in which case Microsoft using the correct license for their own code and adhering to that license is not something you care about either.
> A Cuck License is a permissive software license that that does not enforce the freedom of derivative works. This means that anyone can take software licensed under a Cuck License and turn it into proprietary software, effectively cucking the original author.
> Examples of Cuck Licenses are the MIT license and BSD license.
> Cuck License consequences:
> There have been instances where developers's usage of Cuck Licenses has backfired. One notable example is Andrew Tanenbaum' MINIX, which got taken by Intel and turned into spyware called the Intel Management Engine. Tanenbaum went on to say:
> "Many people (including me) don't like the idea of an all-powerful management engine in there at all (since it is a possible security hole and a dangerous idea in the first place), but that is Intel's business decision and a separate issue from the code it runs. A company as big as Intel could obviously write its own OS if it had to."
> However, Tanenbaum maintains that he made the correct choice licensing MINIX under the 3-clause BSD License.
https://wiki.installgentoo.com/wiki/Cuck_license