The gray area here is their claim: That it was done without their approval.
If the company is the copyright holder, then the license that the code was released under was invalid from the start - regardless of it being out in the public.
Just because someone gets some Microsoft internal code and slaps an open source license on it and releases it to the public, that doesn't mean every company is now free to use the code without reprisal from Microsoft.
They're not "changing" the license - they're saying it never existed / was never valid in the first place.
Now, if they had done it officially - then yes, the best they could do was dual / re-license it. Being the copyright holder, they have the right to do this at any time. They could then stop work on the original open source licensed version and from that point on, internally, continue to develop their closed source version (minus the contributions to the open source fork).
The open source (older) version would continue to exist, separately, and continue to be free for use.
If someone has a business/product built on using nv3d and they come after them with a cease and desist / demand for money, the business in question could definitely take them to court over it and attempt discovery to find internal documents indicating whether it was truly approved or not - which would then either ratify or abolish the license once and for all.
Comments
The gray area here is their claim: That it was done without their approval.
If the company is the copyright holder, then the license that the code was released under was invalid from the start - regardless of it being out in the public.
Just because someone gets some Microsoft internal code and slaps an open source license on it and releases it to the public, that doesn't mean every company is now free to use the code without reprisal from Microsoft.
They're not "changing" the license - they're saying it never existed / was never valid in the first place.
Now, if they had done it officially - then yes, the best they could do was dual / re-license it. Being the copyright holder, they have the right to do this at any time. They could then stop work on the original open source licensed version and from that point on, internally, continue to develop their closed source version (minus the contributions to the open source fork).
The open source (older) version would continue to exist, separately, and continue to be free for use.
If someone has a business/product built on using nv3d and they come after them with a cease and desist / demand for money, the business in question could definitely take them to court over it and attempt discovery to find internal documents indicating whether it was truly approved or not - which would then either ratify or abolish the license once and for all.
If that source code was under github.com/microsoft for almost a year, that would be a very different story.
Once they can reasonably prove that is was done without authorization, could you personally sue the rogue employee for damages, I wonder?
Well, of course.