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Microsoft asks for $5 check sent to Redmond to get 3rdparty source code for Edge
3 points by eapotapov 1515 days ago
"Source code for portions of Microsoft Edge is available free of charge from https://thirdpartysource.microsoft.com under the third party open source license terms provided at https://aka.ms/thirdpartynotices and in Microsoft Edge at edge://credits after installation. Or to obtain this source code you may send a check or money order for US $5.00, including the Edge version number, to:

Source Code Compliance Team Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 USA"

3 comments

There’s a big misunderstanding here. The $5 would be to obtain a physical copy of the source code if the inquiry cannot be satisfied (for free!) online.
If anything, the opposite problem has caught a lot of folks off guard -- GPL and other copyleft used to require (require!) you to provide physical media in exchange for a check; an online link used to be insufficient to fulfill your source distribution requirements.
That’s fairly standard.
I wonder if anyone was really trying to do it, and if they have a defined procedure for such request (get the check, proceed with the source code access etc.)
I used to work (left 10 years ago) at the FSF and dealt with a lot of that kind of thing.

Also prisoners asking for books.

Why do they gate it this way? Don't they own GitHub?

Bad actors, just ludicrous..

Also, isn't it just a chromium fork? I wonder if ElGoog gave them speci licensing terms.

Chrome is released as "proprietary freeware"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome

Chromium is licensed as 3-clause BSD, which means $ms can do whatever TF they want with it. Fun.

Is it a gate? I mean, I guess it's an OR-gate... Do you want it free? You can download it. Do you want it on a disc? Send $5 and you'll get it.