John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying • Hacker News Board

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#121

Post by beachy » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 5:56 PM UTC

bshimmin wrote: post #110

beachy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spoken like an intellectual (not an insult - an observation). Could John Carmack explain binary space partitioning in an interesting way that made Joe Average feel like he got it? Most likely yes. But would Joe Average really "get it"? Could he make a meaningful judgement as to whether some other piece of software implementing BSP was more or less a copy of some other piece? (just using BSP as an example - not a good…

a little knowledge is dangerous The quote from Alexander Pope is actually "A little learning is a dangerous thing". People often get this wrong, which is probably a tiny bit ironic.

Touché! I stand mortified and corrected.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#122

Post by Retric » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

sqeaky wrote: post #72

gravypod wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No matter how removed someone is from your field of expertise you should be able to consisely make a case for why you aren't at fault and why. You should also be able to demonstrate using basic logic that the simplest components of two source trees (something that is extremely basic) can show resemblance to another extremely basic component. For example the similarity of example code. How many example source files ha…

> demonstrate using basic logic that the simplest components of two source trees (something that is extremely basic) If you think that is "extremely basic" I think you may be overestimating how poorly 1 in 12 people understand computer related concepts. I suspect it is far more, but I am biased. Before software development I worked tech support. I have heard some nightmarish misunderstandings. I have had people who l…

The simple approach would be to take pictures of several houses that look very similar and show they are not copies of each other. Have an architect show why some elements where similar between houses because of similar choices and constraints.

Then show how what the two programs do are similar in they both sit between a game and computer hardware. Further, demonstrating they both share similarities with some other piece of software that does similar things.

Finally, show several core differences between each software.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#123

Post by 794CD01 » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

intherdfield wrote: post #113

pyb wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the downvotes, sounds like I'm the only one who is shocked by this.

Could you explain why you think this is a threat aimed at the expert witness in this trial? Any time someone publishes a work, they are putting their reputation at risk. If the work is bad, the whole world will know they did it. Carmack is saying he thinks this should be the case for reports and analyses given by expert witnesses.

You could say the same thing about anything people do in secret. Yet many people still want privacy.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#124

Post by itsdrewmiller » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 5:58 PM UTC

Digory wrote: post #54

I suppose many weird things happen in $500m cases, but it'd be really unusual to have trial testimony sealed against the agreement of the parties. Pretrial reports and depositions, sure. Media was apparently there reporting during the expert's trial testimony, and I'd be surprised if they cannot buy a transcript from the court reporter. ( http://uploadvr.com/court-oculus-zenimax-last-day/ ) A quick look at the docket…

Yeah, this was the part that seemed most important and potentially most unreliable to me. I would like to see where they officially requested that this testimony be made public and were denied.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#125

Post by kleiba » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 5:59 PM UTC

addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well each side can make incredibly complex things comprehensible and convincing without any real understanding of the underlying principles in the field.

Just a side note: the same argument can be applied to the political parties and elections.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#126

Post by mlmlmasd » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

ue_ wrote: post #25

addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…

I would pay to see Google, Oracle, Microsoft, etc be judged by FSF.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#127

Post by protomyth » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 6:00 PM UTC

ue_ wrote: post #25

addisonj wrote: post #10

I don't have the evidence so I can't make a judgement about whether Zenimax or Carmack is in the wrong here, but this does point out something strange in our court system and that is where a "jury of peers" which translates to normal people with little to no knowledge of the underlying subject matter. As our society becomes more specialized it seems a bit absurd to have people make judgements mostly based on how well…

This is a very common argument against juries, and I think it's one of the most powerful. Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice. But if we take the idea of a jury to be about judging by one's peers, it should be patently clear (heh) that the jury o…

> Of course if you start to fill a jury with people competent in the area being judged, you run different risks, such as bias within the field. And it's still not clear that it would help with delivering justice.

If you've ever worked at a company with an "problematic" architectural committee you might get a little scared of having them as a jury.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#128

Post by gregw2 » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 6:01 PM UTC

Digory wrote: post #54

I suppose many weird things happen in $500m cases, but it'd be really unusual to have trial testimony sealed against the agreement of the parties. Pretrial reports and depositions, sure. Media was apparently there reporting during the expert's trial testimony, and I'd be surprised if they cannot buy a transcript from the court reporter. ( http://uploadvr.com/court-oculus-zenimax-last-day/ ) A quick look at the docket…

Interesting. David Dobkin is the Dean of Faculty at Princeton University who used to be a Computer Science professor there for a very long time before being Dean; his specialty was 3D geometry (not a 3D shader guy, kinda a bit more math-y than applied.)

I don't know if he ever presided over code plagarism cases with clever Princeton CS undergrads but since he was department chair for a fair chunk of time, information on that may well provide interesting insight into his methodology and previous experience. (Reviewing papers for various computer graphics entities might also contain additional plagarism experience but that's unlikely to be code-comparison-type plagarism.) Given his CV I would be very surprised whether he has considered abstract syntax trees much since he got his PhD 43 years ago, but I am not convinced by Carmack that is automatically exculpatory.

I would consider him a reasonable pick as an expert in 3D geometry and algorithms (although he hasn't been active in the field in 10+ years he did it for a /long/ time which is likely sufficient) and he may have dealt with plagarism of regular text during his career a moderate amount, but he does NOT seem to be an expert in code-plagarism or code similarity. It's interesting that the former is good enough and they didn't need an expert in the latter.

In any case, given the positions he's been at, whatever he's getting paid, even $600+/hour, I doubt he /needs/ the money. (If he is in fact the expert witness.)

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#129

Post by omegaham » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 6:01 PM UTC

josu wrote: post #79

erikbye wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average Joe does not know what source code is, nor is he able to tell one piece of source code or one programming language apart from another, it is all gibberish to probably the majority of the jury. Hell, a few years back most Americans did not know that McDonald's was unhealthy, they had to be told this...

To further your point, the expert had to use Harry Potter as an analogy. In my opinion, analogies should be banned from courtrooms. They are fine for casual discussions, but they are often misleading.

I disagree, as precedent is hugely important in interpreting the law. You link the existing situation to precedent with analogy.

Re: John Carmack on expert witnesses and 'non literal' copying

#130

Post by imh » Thu, Feb 02, 2017, 6:01 PM UTC

pyb wrote: post #28

perfmode wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John makes a good point. Here, transparency appears to be in truth's best interest.

From the downvotes, sounds like I'm the only one who is shocked by this.

He's only threatening them in the sense of peer review. If you publish dumb stuff, your reputation is hurt, but that doesn't make peer review shocking.