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Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

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Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#11

Post by bsimpson »

Permit wrote: post #7
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

How is that clear? I haven't followed the case, but it seems as though he copied important intellectual property (HFT code) when he left the firm. I'm sure if a developer at Apple or Microsoft downloaded the Windows or OS X kernel code when they left that they would face charges of some kind as well.

There was a really well-written feature on the case. As I recall, he used and modified open source code in his system. He tried to push his changes upstream, but ran into political pressure from inside of Goldman, so he tried to make a personal copy of the libraries he modified.

You can certainly make the case that Goldman paid for that code, and if they didn't want it pushed upstream that's their prerogative, but it's a very different thing to sell trade secrets to a competitor (how the mass media has reported the case) and to make a backup of an open-source library you modified at work.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#12

Post by pvnick »

vinkelhake wrote: post #6
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

Things always appear clear to conspiracy theorists. Do you have facts to back this up? People join and leave jobs in the financial industry every day. Is Goldman Sachs special in this regard?

Ok can we please stop with the "conspiracy theorist" label/ad hominem attacks? After the NSA revelations have shown things to be a lot worse than even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists thought, folks with an eye for corruption have earned a little wiggle room to be taken seriously.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#13

Post by dllthomas »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #9
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.

"while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public"

I hadn't heard this part of it - what was the license in question?

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#14

Post by dllthomas »

downandout wrote: post #8
Permit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that clear? I haven't followed the case, but it seems as though he copied important intellectual property (HFT code) when he left the firm. I'm sure if a developer at Apple or Microsoft downloaded the Windows or OS X kernel code when they left that they would face charges of some kind as well.

I read the original (very detailed) article. According to it, everything he copied was non-proprietary. Almost all of it was open source stuff.

Changes to open source stuff may or may not be proprietary, depending...

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#15

Post by burntsushi »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #9
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.

> (Which Goldman illegally prohibited him from releasing, while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public)

I don't know the exact details of the case, but just to clarify: under the GPL, you don't have to release your changes if you aren't distributing that commercial product.

e.g., If he modified it for in-house use, there is, AFAIK, no legal obligation to release those modifications (under the GPL).

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#17

Post by melling »

downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. He works in an industry that does not allow you to email code home or copy it off of company computers. Goldman might be a little different, but where I've worked, this was definitely a no, no, and you could easily be fired for doing it.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#18

Post by anonymoushn »

dllthomas wrote: post #13
TrainedMonkey wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.

"while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public" I hadn't heard this part of it - what was the license in question?

I'm also curious about this. Not even AGPL would have such a requirement.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#19

Post by vinkelhake »

pvnick wrote: post #12
vinkelhake wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things always appear clear to conspiracy theorists. Do you have facts to back this up? People join and leave jobs in the financial industry every day. Is Goldman Sachs special in this regard?

Ok can we please stop with the "conspiracy theorist" label/ad hominem attacks? After the NSA revelations have shown things to be a lot worse than even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists thought, folks with an eye for corruption have earned a little wiggle room to be taken seriously.

If you begin a statement with "It's very clear" then I expect you to back that statement up with facts so that the rest of us can see why it's so clear. Does it seem reasonable that Goldman Sachs want to send a message to their own programmers? Is that going to work well for them in recruiting?

If anything, the NSA revelations have given conspiracy theorists carte blanche to go full steam on their theories. You'll hardly find a thread related to Google on HN without the obligatory "Well, now that we know that Google has given NSA has unfettered access to all data..."

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#20

Post by [deleted] »

TrainedMonkey wrote: post #9
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.

[deleted]
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