Licenses would be completely useless if you could just change them retroactively. Whatever was released under MIT will be available under MIT in perpetuity. MS can release this under a different license later or add new things using a different license, but it can’t retroactively revoke MIT license from the content that was already released under it.
Copyright owner can change the license as they like, they just can’t unrelease what has already been released in whatever license. If it is a permissive license anyone can even make a proprietary copy.
Whatever was released under MIT will be available under MIT in perpetuity.
I agree with your general point, but I would have used “can” rather than “will”. They will be available as long as anyone hosts them, but Microsoft has no obligation to host the MIT version forever. (this is not a specificity of the MIT license)
Maybe it would be useful to save them their readme on wayback machine, so as to be able -in case of a future dispute- to prove that Microsoft had MIT’d it at some point.
Wait really? I thought it could.
Licenses would be completely useless if you could just change them retroactively. Whatever was released under MIT will be available under MIT in perpetuity. MS can release this under a different license later or add new things using a different license, but it can’t retroactively revoke MIT license from the content that was already released under it.
Copyright owner can change the license as they like, they just can’t unrelease what has already been released in whatever license. If it is a permissive license anyone can even make a proprietary copy.
Right, the point is that stuff that’s already released is perfectly safe in perpetuity.
I replied too quickly. Didn’t read the 2nd+ sentences. But it seems that was exactly OP’s point anyway
I agree with your general point, but I would have used “can” rather than “will”. They will be available as long as anyone hosts them, but Microsoft has no obligation to host the MIT version forever. (this is not a specificity of the MIT license)
Maybe it would be useful to save them their readme on wayback machine, so as to be able -in case of a future dispute- to prove that Microsoft had MIT’d it at some point.
looks like the repo’s already been archived https://web.archive.org/web/20220810173419/https://github.com/microsoft/fluentui-emoji/blob/main/LICENSE