Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

"Please take this down and write your own book."

github.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 178 posts

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#41

Post by jpcx01 »

Someone, please tell me where there is a copyright notice anywhere on http://learnpythonthehardway.org/ or on the PDF http://learnpythonthehardway.org/static/LearnPythonTheHardWa...

If he's so fanatical about copyright, why can't he post something about it?

The culture developers are used to on github is forking people's work and tweaking it (while still giving attribution to the author). It's not totally shocking that someone would accidentally apply this philosophy to this book. Telling someone he has "no class" for doing this is just being a dick.

But then again, its Zed D Shaw. He earned that middle name.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#42

Post by voodootikigod »

The worst part of this situation is how martinemde is portending himself to be a "translator" like from English to Spanish, ignorant of the fact that you even need permission to do that. http://twitter.com/martinemde

Also its pretty crappy how the Ruby Protection Squad came to his rescue with blind hate for Zed throwing comments like "Wow didn't even know who Zed Shaw was, now the first thing I learned about him is that he's a total d-bag" - http://twitter.com/PeteTheSadPanda/status/598669095084033

Yes Zed doesn't always say things gently, but what he did say was 100% truth. Regardless of if you like what he says you have to respect 1. the truth and 2. who was really in the wrong here.

Final note: this guy could have buried it by just deleting the whole repo, but left it up to seem like the "martyr" - that is what kills me the most.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#43

Post by tvon »

rbanffy wrote: post #27
charlief wrote: post #5

This was originally posted by martinemde looking for support and then flagged down here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1873881

"I messaged you on Twitter and contacted you by email to try to give you knowledge of it. I was quite public about doing it as a _why day project. I made a good faith effort to let you know what I was working on. I even knew you were working on having a learn code the hard way thing and I wanted to contribute but there's no clear outline of your goals or how you expect people to contribute. This is my understanding o…

> It seems he tried contact and was ignored.

I don't think silence is consent in this case. The whole thing seems like an obviously bad idea to me...

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#45

Post by mcknz »

swannodette wrote: post #14
mcknz wrote: post #6

But honestly Zed, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy I just didn't "lift" your whole book and put my name on it!

I hope sarcasm is intended here, if so- that's funny.

Thought it interesting how absurd the "Monica" situation seems, yet we often engage in essentially the same behavior ourselves.

That just doesn't sound as good on a bumper sticker.

EDIT: clarification

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#46

Post by kenjackson »

epochwolf wrote: post #29
pmjordan wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt that would have helped. Being caught infringing on someone's copyright is embarrassing to say the least. Embarrassment and being given advice, no matter how well-meaning, will often not go down well. In fact, many people get extra annoyed when you're nice about this sort of thing. I think Zed's initial approach was a close approximation of the best way to handle this. Although I probably would have left it at…

> In fact, many people get extra annoyed when you're nice about this sort of thing. My guilty pleasure at work is reading support emails. There are a few gems like that in the system.

That's a different ball game. Support people are often extremely nice when they aren't fixing something that they should be fixing (although in some cases it's not possible). Being nice doesn't address the fact that I just lost two years worth of data.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#47

Post by forsaken »

JanezStupar wrote: post #26

This is Zeeed Shaaaaw!!! I have never met the guy, but I surely hope that I get the privilege some day, even if he just picks on me and tells me that my work is worthless piece of junk and that if it implodes in a second it would be a service to the world - because that might be single most insightful and sincere analysis one might receive. Kudos to anyone with a pair, that is capable of speaking their mind in today'…

Zed is actually really nice in person.

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#48

Post by pmjordan »

mcknz wrote: post #31
pmjordan wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know, would you call copyright infringement a "classy" thing to do?

not at all -- just thought that was the only part that martinemde could possibly object to.

My money's on being caught red-handed at copyright infringement. Plus an unhealthy level of entitlement (I'm a fucking Engine Yard programmer for fuck sake.)

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#49

Post by scott_s »

rubyrescue wrote: post #16

"I'm a fucking Engine Yard programmer for fuck sake." - what an arrogant statement.

I read it not as "I'm an amazing programmer because I work for Engine Yard," but "I work for a company that clearly depends on your work - I respect what you've done."

Re: "Please take this down and write your own book."

#50

Post by citricsquid »

JanezStupar wrote: post #26

This is Zeeed Shaaaaw!!! I have never met the guy, but I surely hope that I get the privilege some day, even if he just picks on me and tells me that my work is worthless piece of junk and that if it implodes in a second it would be a service to the world - because that might be single most insightful and sincere analysis one might receive. Kudos to anyone with a pair, that is capable of speaking their mind in today'…

Like it or not Zed is entirely right here. It's his work, the guy had no permission, it has nothing to do with being "politically correct" it has everything to do with no being a dick and respecting a persons ownership and the effort they put into something. Whether or not Zed is the biggest dick in the world is irrelevant.
Post reply on HN