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An Unbelievable Demo

brendangregg.com

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Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#361

Post by lowbloodsugar »

bilalhusain wrote: post #99

> I've learned ... instead to simply say "I have a lot of experience with that technology" and leave it at that. Shows Brendan's maturity. I am not sure what should be the appropriate reaction or corrective measure in these situations. We should talk more about handling these unfair situations. Someone else can become more successful building on top of one's open source project. On a resume, a top contributor and a m…

>I am not sure what should be the appropriate reaction or corrective measure in these situations.

When it happens internally, i.e. I catch someone doing it, then either it is a "first time offense" of the clueless, or it is the act of an unethical person who will be unrepentant. For the clueless, it might be that they undervalue themselves, and therefore undervalue assigning credit. The unethical person, however, understands what they are doing and is simply untrustworthy. They will also likely have a lawyer, because they've done this before. So it can be pricey to get rid of them, but get rid of them you must. They are poison to your team.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#362

Post by webXL »

fenomas wrote: post #119
Agentlien wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love more details! Could you please link the voxel engine? Which version of Minecraft was this?

Annoyingly there's not much to tell. It was a minimal web version, released as a one-off marketing thing and then never updated, and Mojang didn't reply when I tried to get in touch (via contacts at microsoft). So I never really found out anything about it. The game is still live though: https://classic.minecraft.net - Originally it supported multiplayer, but that stopped working the day after the game launched. The…

> Minecraft Classic - official game from Mojang (I'm as surprised as you are)

lol. Microsoft should just release all the source for this since Minecraft isn't exactly state of the art these days. The brand is nearly all of the value.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#363

Post by denton-scratch »

scubakid wrote: post #282
rorykoehler wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a pretty interesting thought experiment. How likely is it to burn bridges with a multibillion dollar corp by taking them to court to protect your IP? They might even respect you for it. Most likely the people working there will move on eventually and especially if they are responsible for IP theft that results in a heavy legal bill. Companies sue each other over ip all the time and then still do business with…

I don't know much about law, but I wonder what the ballpark out-of-pocket legal costs might look like for an individual going after a large corporation with an IP suit... i.e. how likely is it the corporation could win simply by dragging out proceedings and exhausting your resources / burying you with legal fees?

You don't need to get into legal proceedings, if the facts are clear.

If you can prove it's your invention, and they're distributing it without your permission, they won't want to waste money defending a suit.

You may be a little guy, without enough dosh to launch a suit; but you could sell your interest to $COPYRIGHT_TROLL, then they'd be in trouble. So just ask them nicely to propose a settlement.

It's not like war, or anything; tech-company legal departments are there for just this kind of thing. Unless there are arseholes involved, it can all be friendly and business-like.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#364

Post by belter »

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #347
cperciva wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're giving cperciva too much credit. He was just as arrogant as people thought, and he was definitely defensive.

I wonder how many people will downvote you without looking at your username?

This thread is turning out to be better than the one from 2007...

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#365

Post by shaftway »

TimPC wrote: post #344
derefr wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, people who say so-and-so company (usually Google) is hard to contact for support, or that they require expensive support contracts before they'll talk to you, have likely never tried sending email to the appropriate mailing list for the product. It's amazing how often doing this completely bypasses any corporate first-line-support structure in the way, and just puts the email right into the inbox of the line en…

It depends on your issue. We got good support emailing with the TF Lite team on a neural net bug. I think if you’re interacting with open source in a value add way google support is often quite good. If you’re looking for support for integrating for sales or classic customer support it can be terrible to non-existent.

> If you’re looking for support for integrating for sales or classic customer support it can be terrible to non-existent.

> Maybe it's just that they're technical people, and my questions are usually very nerd-snipe-y, and get them hooked.

Integrating sales or classic customer support is boring.

I mean, I get that it pays the bills, but when I've got a million priorities, boring work that I don't really get credit for goes to the bottom of the pile.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#366

Post by libria »

abalaji wrote: post #325
mishraprince wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That one reply in that flame war is still hilarious so many years later. To anyone who didn't get the reference of Putnam https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079

wow, that’s one helluva response. HN in 2007 seems like a wonderful place

Like the featured article, HN threads - then and now - are pretty low-key in regards to participant introductions. Usernames are just text, no flair or qualifiers so the focus is on the speaker's content itself. `libria` is free to converse with `cperciva` as an equal peer which is nice, because most other IRL forums I'd be acutely aware that's not the case ;)

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#367

Post by squarefoot »

Tepix wrote: post #259
squarefoot wrote: post #248

Almost been there. I was once hired and given some sources to work on by a company, and those were the same exact sources I wrote at another company years before, although my name and all recognizable comments were stripped, save for a few almost invisible traces I left like my initials paired with reserved words to make them appear like directives, pragmas, etc. The guy who had given me the "new" sources was without…

I for one wouldn't be so forgiving. Stripping the author's name from source code is an absolute no-go.

Yes, but that code wasn't mine either as I wrote at another company as their product. When I added my "hidden" traces I did that with no intention to claim ownership, but rather to leave a signature just in case. Technically the 1st company should have sued him, but I can't know for sure the details; the old project was then dead, and he could have purchased the sources legally, although I doubt that.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#368

Post by TulliusCicero »

WA wrote: post #195
TulliusCicero wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that's a specific regional American accent, in the US called a Southern accent. Probably the only strong/widespread regional accent really left in the states (you could also argue for AAVE/ebonics but it's not regional in the same way). It's a bit like saying that someone from rural Bavaria who speaks with a strong Bavarian accent has a heavy German accent while speaking German.

Yes, but I'd bet that the Bavarian accent in particular is considered by foreigners as "heavy German". Bavarian culture (Oktoberfest) is considered "typical German".

That may be, but they'd be wrong.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#369

Post by oefrha »

gpm wrote: post #354
oefrha wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. Making copies internally is also copyright infringement... No, GPL FAQ specifically addresses internal distribution: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#InternalDistributi... > Is making and using multiple copies within one organization or company “distribution”? > No, in that case the organization is just making the copies for itself. As a consequence, a company or other organization can develop a modif…

> No, GPL FAQ specifically addresses internal distribution Which couldn't be more irrelevant, because a) This software doesn't appear to be licensed under the GPL. b) The question here is not whether or not it's distribution, it's if it's copyright infringement. Making copies of copyrighted material is illegal (up to fair use and licenses) regardless of whether or not you distribute them. c) The GPL also requires you…

TFA does say the code was under GPLv2 and CDDL. I would say it’s entirely within your right to distribute it in accordance with what the GPL FAQ considers okay, which includes internal distribution however you want. License header is required when distributing externally.

Re: An Unbelievable Demo

#370

Post by gpm »

oefrha wrote: post #369
gpm wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, GPL FAQ specifically addresses internal distribution Which couldn't be more irrelevant, because a) This software doesn't appear to be licensed under the GPL. b) The question here is not whether or not it's distribution, it's if it's copyright infringement. Making copies of copyrighted material is illegal (up to fair use and licenses) regardless of whether or not you distribute them. c) The GPL also requires you…

TFA does say the code was under GPLv2 and CDDL. I would say it’s entirely within your right to distribute it in accordance with what the GPL FAQ considers okay, which includes internal distribution however you want. License header is required when distributing externally.

Oh weird, read over that line. Removes one of my bullet points but doesn't change the result. I agree you can distribute it internally, i.e. you can pass around the hard drive with the single unmodified copy. You can't make copies of it without the header, regardless of whether you keep it internal.
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