I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it • Hacker News Board

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#251

Post by sneak » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:42 AM UTC

treesknees wrote: post #249

sneak wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code is MIT licensed. Anyone is legally allowed to upload MIT licensed code to GitHub, it's free software and may be freely redistributed.

It’s alarming because, in my experience, anything you write for an employer is intellectual property of the company. Unless he wrote that Box demo all on his own time and his own equipment completely outside of work, or Box has some abnormal contract with their employees, he can’t just slap an MIT license onto it and call it open source. I worked with a few people who were successfully sued by our employer when those…

Yes, but if we speculate as to the invalidity of the explicitly published license, we basically can't use any foss code on GitHub.

Any reasonable person can expect that the MIT license on this code is valid and authorized by the rightsholder.

Did Uber or Box explicitly agree to release it under an foss license? Is it the author's personal individual copyright made on personal hardware outside of work location/time? Does it predate their employment? Nothing in the article linked indicates clearly that it was written for an employer.

If I am expected to research this for every foss library published on GitHub by someone who works for Big Tech, then we are all capital-f fucked.

It's easiest and sanest to assume that people are not lying.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#252

Post by oh_sigh » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:43 AM UTC

diogenes4 wrote: post #248

ipython wrote: post #144

Best quote: "People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!” This is so true. People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a…

> People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. Back in my day this was called "competition" and worked for the consumer, not against them. I find the espionage factor to be theatrical hogwash trotted out by the corporate types. We americans love competition, right? Stfu and compete.

What it would do is punish companies that do real R&D, and reward companies that have no actual talent in that area. So ultimately the field would stagnate because no one would invest in R&D.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#253

Post by whimsicalism » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:43 AM UTC

Funny that this article is talking about interns exhilarating data and yet the author blatantly recycles code between employers.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#254

Post by Proziam » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:43 AM UTC

diogenes4 wrote: post #248

ipython wrote: post #144

Best quote: "People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!” This is so true. People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a…

> People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. Back in my day this was called "competition" and worked for the consumer, not against them. I find the espionage factor to be theatrical hogwash trotted out by the corporate types. We americans love competition, right? Stfu and compete.

Is it "competition" when you're up against state-sponsored actors who will use tactics the rest of the world would consider illegal?

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#255

Post by nwiswell » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:45 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #251

treesknees wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s alarming because, in my experience, anything you write for an employer is intellectual property of the company. Unless he wrote that Box demo all on his own time and his own equipment completely outside of work, or Box has some abnormal contract with their employees, he can’t just slap an MIT license onto it and call it open source. I worked with a few people who were successfully sued by our employer when those…

Yes, but if we speculate as to the invalidity of the explicitly published license, we basically can't use any foss code on GitHub. Any reasonable person can expect that the MIT license on this code is valid and authorized by the rightsholder. Did Uber or Box explicitly agree to release it under an foss license? Is it the author's personal individual copyright made on personal hardware outside of work location/time? D…

"It's easiest and safest to assume that property is not stolen" is a parallel construction of your argument.

You can assume whatever you want but the cops may not be very impressed.

There are a lot of polite fictions in law, and this is one of them. If you had no reasonable way of knowing that a license was invalid (or property was stolen), the judge is probably going to be sympathetic, but the property will still get returned to its proper owner.

If you DID have a reasonable way to know that the status of the property was suspect (as in this case), they are likely to take a dim view of the situation.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#256

Post by treesknees » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:45 AM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #16

Znafon wrote: post #4

"Nothing came of it, but I took the code and shoved it into my back pocket for a rainy day. My idea was to take this code and spruce it up for Uber’s use case." "My first reaction was to publish the code on Github." I’m very surprised by this, isn’t the code property of Box, or Uber? The author does not mention their authorisation before releasing it under MIT license.

Author here. The code was originally written outside of work hours. I offered the code to Box and they didn't want it. If Uber wants a few thousand lines of JavaScript from over half a decade ago that didn't originate with them and that they used for less than a month, they can send me a letter.

“half a decade” is practically yesterday in most codebases.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#257

Post by kopecs » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:47 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #51

pc86 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially the brazenness with which the author basically says "if they want to sue me for this verified and admitted IP theft, they can." Sure, they probably won't. But they might. And if they do, you'll lose immediately. Seems like a pretty high risk no reward scenario.

And if you lose immediately, you likely owe damages. Those damages, even if trebled, appear to be $0 here.

Except there are statutory damages for copyright infringement.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#258

Post by phendrenad2 » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:58 AM UTC

diogenes4 wrote: post #248

ipython wrote: post #144

Best quote: "People working for Didi apply for intern jobs at Uber China and then exfiltrate our data. We can’t let them see the formulas or they’ll just copy what we do!” This is so true. People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. I was responding to an unrelated breach at an unnamed tech company back in mid-2000s time frame and had a…

> People in the US just don't understand the level of economic and industrial espionage that happens in China on a daily basis. Back in my day this was called "competition" and worked for the consumer, not against them. I find the espionage factor to be theatrical hogwash trotted out by the corporate types. We americans love competition, right? Stfu and compete.

You're missing a huge part of this: The "competition" you think you're referring to had, you know, actual rules. Sending people to get jobs at a rival, and steal all of their internal documents and trade secrets, is illegal in most countries.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#259

Post by dclowd9901 » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 2:59 AM UTC

sneak wrote: post #246

zik wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My hair stood on end both times he did this. Holy crap that's some massive legal liability.

The code is MIT licensed. Anyone is legally allowed to upload MIT licensed code to GitHub, it's free software and may be freely redistributed.

Not when he wrote it for and showed it to box. Doesn’t matter how he “licensed” it. They would have had good legal standing to come after him. I can’t believe he wrote that on his blog. He should honestly take it down.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#260

Post by dclowd9901 » Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 3:02 AM UTC

bastawhiz wrote: post #16

Znafon wrote: post #4

"Nothing came of it, but I took the code and shoved it into my back pocket for a rainy day. My idea was to take this code and spruce it up for Uber’s use case." "My first reaction was to publish the code on Github." I’m very surprised by this, isn’t the code property of Box, or Uber? The author does not mention their authorisation before releasing it under MIT license.

Author here. The code was originally written outside of work hours. I offered the code to Box and they didn't want it. If Uber wants a few thousand lines of JavaScript from over half a decade ago that didn't originate with them and that they used for less than a month, they can send me a letter.

That’s really not how it works. Ostensibly by showing it to box, it was written for box, and they would be well within a standard of legal standing to make your life a living hell for taking it elsewhere. You should really be more careful with what you say.

Why would you wontonly open yourself to legal liability? You say “they’re free to come after you” but you really _really_ don’t want that. Ive seen that happen to friends and the stress almost killed them.