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Microsoft rips off Plurk

blog.plurk.com

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Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#51

Post by jganetsk »

ErrantX wrote: post #46
jganetsk wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's an extreme approach. It would otherwise be nearly impossible to prove that Microsoft's code is not derived from GPL'd works. At least without revealing their code.

I disagree; "you shouldn't read Open Source code" doesn't fix anything much because it's impossible to find out if developers are sticking to it or not (so it doesn't decrease the burden of proof). It's just as impossible to prove that MS work doesn't include GPL code with or without the rule :) A better (more effective) one is, surely, dont reuse restricted code.... :)

Microsoft actually tries to enforce the policy of "you shouldn't read Open Source code". For example, they block access to Sourceforge from the Microsoft campus.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#53

Post by sachinag »

likpok wrote: post #39
ratsbane wrote: post #29

This reminds me of the Kayak/Bing Travel issue from July and similar incidents before that. It's easy enough to blame some contractors at a distant outpost but the frequency with which these things happen around Microsoft certainly leads to the conclusion that they are bad actors and poor citizens.

Kayak/Bing Travel wasn't Microsoft, IIRC. They acquired another company who copied the look and feel of Kayak.

They acquired Farecast.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#54

Post by tptacek »

eob wrote: post #40
jf wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just started working for Microsoft so that I can be a voice inside the company for startups. I'm forwarding this thread to my legal contact.

Was that really the prime motivator in joining MS? How do you mean "be a voice for startups"? Cool. People usually cite this reasoning for joining the government -- an organization whose mandate is toward the greater good of its people, but I've never heard it applied toward a corporate entity, whose mandate is solely profit. Would you mind posting a bit more about your motivations and thinking? I would really like t…

A reasonable person might conclude that they could have more influence over the industry in 4 years at Microsoft than in 2-3 more small startups.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#55

Post by amix »

eob wrote: post #41
amix wrote: post #5

Being the co-founder and lead dev of Plurk I can tell you this sucks :-( But we are looking at our legal options, thought legal war with Microsoft and especially legal war at Microsoft in China would require a lot of resources. I think this will become a major concern for all startups that are doing lots of client-side stuff. If people have determination they can copy your code (even if all your code is obfuscated, w…

Amix, I feel for you, man. This is really awful to wake up and see. China has totally different laws though -- do you know if this kind of copying is legal there? I have a number of friends who have told me that the whole web startup scene in Beijing is totally different than the US because the rules of the market are completely different over there (rampant copying, theft, DDOS attacks among competitors, etc). One e…

I can't disclose much on the legal aspects, since I might say something stupid. A few months from now I hope the war story will be similar to David vs. Goliath, because that is our current situation - i.e. we are fighting vs. a billion dollar mega corp that has stolen most of our ideas and code and uses their power to come in a market where we are banned [China].

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#56

Post by voyagerfan5761 »

I can't say I'm surprised that Microsoft has stolen yet another idea, but I am astonished that they didn't go to more effort to obfuscate that fact. I'm publicizing this through my networks. More people need to know that the 's' in 'Microsoft' is really a '$'.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#57

Post by stanleydrew »

qeorge wrote: post #47
amix wrote: post #5

Being the co-founder and lead dev of Plurk I can tell you this sucks :-( But we are looking at our legal options, thought legal war with Microsoft and especially legal war at Microsoft in China would require a lot of resources. I think this will become a major concern for all startups that are doing lots of client-side stuff. If people have determination they can copy your code (even if all your code is obfuscated, w…

They can't steal what's really valuable about Plurk: 1) Your loyal community 2) The team that created this site in the first place All they got was a snapshot of what you were doing yesterday.

Indeed. See the related Steve Blank post and surrounding discussion here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=981167. This is a little different since Microsoft is copying a well-known and already successful product, but the idea still applies.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#58

Post by city41 »

jganetsk wrote: post #51
ErrantX wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree; "you shouldn't read Open Source code" doesn't fix anything much because it's impossible to find out if developers are sticking to it or not (so it doesn't decrease the burden of proof). It's just as impossible to prove that MS work doesn't include GPL code with or without the rule :) A better (more effective) one is, surely, dont reuse restricted code.... :)

Microsoft actually tries to enforce the policy of "you shouldn't read Open Source code". For example, they block access to Sourceforge from the Microsoft campus.

That is not true. I'm on Sourceforge on a MS Corporate machine right now. MS doesn't block anything at all.

It is true we are not supposed to look at anyone else's source code though.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#59

Post by amix »

volida wrote: post #17
amix wrote: post #5

Being the co-founder and lead dev of Plurk I can tell you this sucks :-( But we are looking at our legal options, thought legal war with Microsoft and especially legal war at Microsoft in China would require a lot of resources. I think this will become a major concern for all startups that are doing lots of client-side stuff. If people have determination they can copy your code (even if all your code is obfuscated, w…

wow. By the way, what do you mean by obfuscation? Because this is really weird, they even copied the variables. So was the code obfuscated or just trimmed of white space. You should consider using the google closure compiler with advanced optimizations, although you will have το do some extra work το get your javascript compile in advanced mode.

We used Yahoo's compressor for both JS and CSS ( http://developer.yahoo.com/yui/compressor/ ). An example of our JavaScript can be seen here: http://statics.plurk.com/5578b0a824368f9af6afa9dd6e8abf64.js. You can see that not all the variables are converted, since Yahoo's compressor is very conservative and won't change functions or global objects names.

This was the best available option at the time we wrote Plurk. We will take a look at Google Clouse Compiler, thanks.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#60

Post by ErrantX »

jganetsk wrote: post #51
ErrantX wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree; "you shouldn't read Open Source code" doesn't fix anything much because it's impossible to find out if developers are sticking to it or not (so it doesn't decrease the burden of proof). It's just as impossible to prove that MS work doesn't include GPL code with or without the rule :) A better (more effective) one is, surely, dont reuse restricted code.... :)

Microsoft actually tries to enforce the policy of "you shouldn't read Open Source code". For example, they block access to Sourceforge from the Microsoft campus.

What about at home?

I realise the policy is probably not as originally worded here: but I was taking it somewhat literally to point out the fallacy of it.

At some point we have to trust devs to do their own work. This should show that no amount of policy can stop people ripping off work! Whatever the intention.

Reading code is always good; there is usually a net gain as long as it is ethical (i.e. not copied)

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