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Microsoft rips off Plurk

blog.plurk.com

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Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#61

Post by davepeck »

credo wrote: post #12

Microsoft should be held accountable for this, but assuming the blog is correct, I'm assuming that the deliberate ripoff (described on plurk's blog) wasn't a high-level Redmond decision.It was probably a decision taken at the junior management levelin Microsoft, China. It will be interesting to see Microsoft's response, but suspending the MSN club service is probably the best immediate response, if plurk's blog is co…

Precisely. This was a junior dev somewhere far away from Redmond making a terrible mistake. It's about to get thrown up to the highest level, and I can pretty much guarantee you that MSFT takes the site down.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#63

Post by pavs »

ajross wrote: post #13
padmanabhan01 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how does this work? Will everything be fine if they maintained the same look and feel and intentionally obfuscated/added more junk to their code to make the code look different?

No. The Apple v. MS and Lotus v. Borland "look and feel" results were about the interface, not implementation. If you steal code (or other copyrighted content) from someone, no amount of obfuscation will "make it OK" legally (though I guess it might make it impossible to detect). But simply cloning a user interface is legal, at least in US case law.

>But simply cloning a user interface is legal, at least in US case law.

Can you give us citation that it is legal, or are making your claim based on the above lawsuits?

Having a look and feel that is "similar" but "not the same" is open to debate, but having 90% of the interface ripped off, pixel by pixel can't be just "ok". We don't know that because something so dumb didn't happen before in the highest level.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#64

Post by pavs »

figital wrote: post #20
axod wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article. They did.

I just re-read the article. If you really squint you might be able to assume that their code was scrambled in some way (if that's what "not compiled" means). Otherwise if you're trying to gain (well deserved) sympathy for something like this then the deobfuscation process is probably the most important part of the story. Did MS then rescramble the code? I'd want to know that as well.

You are more concerned about obfuscation of code than the fact that a major software developer ripped of someone's code, is a little troubling.

Whether he obfuscation code or not has absolutely zero importance in this context.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#65

Post by mattlong »

axod wrote: post #8
figital wrote: post #3

If you're going to worry about that you should have obfuscated your junk.

Read the article. They did.

I just pretty-printed the largest JS file loaded in their homepage. The result doesn't look obfuscated by any means.

Removing whitespace != Obfuscating

Don't take their claims at face-value, get your facts straight.

Disclaimer: I'm not claiming that obfuscating (or not) makes any difference with regards to MS infringing on their codebase, just pointing out that it's not actually very obfuscated as claimed by their developer.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#66

Post by henriklied »

ubernostrum wrote: post #48
ErrantX wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a somewhat knee jerk / extreme approach to the problem :) Risks stifling innovative code?

And yet not uncommon. We (Django) had a rather frustrating mailing-list exchange with IBM folks who wanted to build a DB2 driver for Django; they claimed their corporate policies wouldn't allow them to look at the existing Django DB backends, or anything BSD-licensed, to gather information on the API.

Wow, are you serious? What ended up as the solution?

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#67

Post by abossy »

clemesha wrote: post #42
eob wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Here's some more info: http://jf.posterous.com/after-5-years-of-using-linux-and-mac...

Joel sounds like he's replacing Don Dodge.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#68

Post by ajross »

pavs wrote: post #63
ajross wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. The Apple v. MS and Lotus v. Borland "look and feel" results were about the interface, not implementation. If you steal code (or other copyrighted content) from someone, no amount of obfuscation will "make it OK" legally (though I guess it might make it impossible to detect). But simply cloning a user interface is legal, at least in US case law.

>But simply cloning a user interface is legal, at least in US case law. Can you give us citation that it is legal, or are making your claim based on the above lawsuits? Having a look and feel that is "similar" but "not the same" is open to debate, but having 90% of the interface ripped off, pixel by pixel can't be just "ok". We don't know that because something so dumb didn't happen before in the highest level.

The Lotus v. Borland decision was, in fact, about an interface that was keystroke-for-keystroke identical between the two applications. Again, there's a very clear case here for copyright infringement of the code. Mixing that with a much less clear case based on the status of the "interface" is just not a good idea.

Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk

#69

Post by figital »

pavs wrote: post #64
figital wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just re-read the article. If you really squint you might be able to assume that their code was scrambled in some way (if that's what "not compiled" means). Otherwise if you're trying to gain (well deserved) sympathy for something like this then the deobfuscation process is probably the most important part of the story. Did MS then rescramble the code? I'd want to know that as well.

You are more concerned about obfuscation of code than the fact that a major software developer ripped of someone's code, is a little troubling. Whether he obfuscation code or not has absolutely zero importance in this context.

Of course it has context if this is being presented as a legal issue. The original article doesn't really mention it (although it's easier to assume now with the hindsight of a complete comment thread). I believe you are "even more guilty" if you de-obfuscate someone's code, then copy and republish/reuse.
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