why doesn't this surprise me
Microsoft rips off Plurk
81–90 of 141 posts
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#82Not condoning MS, but does anyone else find it ironic that a chinese company is accusing MS of piracy?
Not condoning the crime, but does anyone else find it ironic that a black guy is accusing someone of robbery?
Yes, because ignorant stereotyping is fun! Remember kids, it's not racism if it's not targeted at a member of the List Of Races We Should Be Sensitive About!
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#83Being 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'll pay handsomely for the disservice. It's a gold mine and positive press for Plurk. Don't feel too bad, you just won the Internet.
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know if I can lay all the blame on Microsoft for this. The dev's knew what they were doing but I doubt the rip-off percolated very high up. As a SW manager I'm not sure how I'd know that this was ripped off wholesale if I wasn't very familiar with the ripped off site. Don't get me wrong, this is bad. But expose it to MS and let them clean house. I don't doubt that they will.
> if I wasn't very familiar with the ripped off site. Considering the ripped off site is a chief competitor of this software, I suspect the rip-off was aware at least by mid-level managers. Well, either they were aware of the rip-off, or they were wildly incompetent to the point where they didn't even know their chief competitor's site.
I know the web world is different, but a couple of years back nobody from my product group was allowed to install a competitor product and play with it as it would cause IP prior art issues. Most of the developers did it anyhow, they just would not admit to it. However, I did not know of a single manager who really did it. So I would not be surprised if the managers had an executive policy which did not allow them to see other products. This was at a three lettered big company and not MS though.
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#85This 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.
Farecast had a very different UI when MS bought them. The transition to the copy of the Kayak UI happened well after Kayak rolled theirs out and also well after MS bought Farecast.
The scenario/timeline you outline above is reasonable enough to assume - as is the idea that, as Farecast came out before Kayak, that Kayak was actually copying Farecast. What actually happened though is different. Farecast had a completely different model - they were banking on their ability to forecast whether or not you were likely to get a cheaper fare for the same route if you waited. Their original UI was based around that idea and it didn't go over incredibly well. After the Microsoft purchase and before the launch of Bing Travel they did a major redesign and got rid of most of the old Farecast. The old Farecast price predictor idea is reduced to one line at the top of the flights list on the page center.
I wrote about this and posted to HN shortly after Bing Travel went live and because of that I've been introduced to more information about the whole situation than I had when I originally brought it up. In a nutshell, the Microsoft team blatantly copied Kayak's UI and has pretty much gotten away with it.
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What's up with a few of your "to's" at the end of your last sentence? :-)
They're GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU (U+03C4), GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON (U+03BF)
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#87Stunning.
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look I doubt anyone very high up at MS knows of this and when they do you might be able to get some scratch out of this. They're really going to have 3 ways to deal with this. 1. pull down the existing site while they retool. 2. Pay you a licensing fee while the rewrite from scratch. 3. Do nothing and get a ton of bad press See if you can get 1 or 2 and maybe make some money off the deal.
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.
[deleted]
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
Look I doubt anyone very high up at MS knows of this and when they do you might be able to get some scratch out of this. They're really going to have 3 ways to deal with this. 1. pull down the existing site while they retool. 2. Pay you a licensing fee while the rewrite from scratch. 3. Do nothing and get a ton of bad press See if you can get 1 or 2 and maybe make some money off the deal.
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.
Cool, I hope you keep visiting HN often to stay in touch with the start up scene here.
Re: Microsoft rips off Plurk
#90Not condoning MS, but does anyone else find it ironic that a chinese company is accusing MS of piracy?
Not condoning the crime, but does anyone else find it ironic that a black guy is accusing someone of robbery? Yes, because ignorant stereotyping is fun! Remember kids, it's not racism if it's not targeted at a member of the List Of Races We Should Be Sensitive About!
uhh.. its not stereotyping - comment was directed at a government policy that has fostered piracy at all levels in China. The comment is a characterization of policy, not a characterization of people.