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I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

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Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#461

Post by kgilpin »

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.

Right. This is so risky. Having to use your personal resources to defend yourself against a lawsuit brought by a large corporation - really sucks.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#462

Post by gberger »

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.

Sergey Aleynikov (born 1970) is a former Goldman Sachs computer programmer. Between 2009 and 2016, he was prosecuted by NY Federal and State jurisdictions for the same conduct of allegedly copying proprietary computer source code from his employer, Goldman Sachs, before joining a competing firm.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Aleynikov

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#463

Post by lmeyerov »

fiddlerwoaroof wrote: post #330
lll-o-lll wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse than that, many companies have clauses that indicate that any software you write (regardless of whether for the company or not), belongs to them. I don’t know if this would hold up in court, but it’s there in the contract.

In California, at least, this is illegal unless the code competes with the company's products.

If you wrote it w company resources, eg, work laptop or work internet, my understanding is that the company has a strong claim to it

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#464

Post by iancmceachern »

ak_111 wrote: post #432
iancmceachern wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't that. This is engineers deliberately taking tech to somewhere where they know IP laws won't be enforced. It's not like I'm saying they can learn calculus here and then go to China and use calculus to design things. It's that I'm saying they design a very specific thing, a very specific way, for hire, then go make that exact specific thing, that same specific way. If it were in any other country but China,…

This feels like the debate between tax evasion and tax avoidance. What the engineer did here going to an IP lawless place is more like tax avoidance. It has a bad smell but he legally exploited a loophole in the international IP system if I understood correctly. Sort of migrating to a tax haven to avoid taxes. Unless there is something explicitly stated in your contract banning you from taking the "know-how" in your…

It's less that it's explicitly legal, and more that it's not enforced or enforceable there right?

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#465

Post by iancmceachern »

berniedurfee wrote: post #438
the-dude wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were in any other country but China, it wouldn't be allowed to happen. IIRC the USA did plenty of that.

That’s my understanding as well; that the Industrial Revolution in the US was very much based on IP from outside the US.

But was it state sponsored? My understanding is that it was mostly robber barrons doing their thing, which isn't really "The US", its more "People in the US".

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#466

Post by lmeyerov »

makeitdouble wrote: post #211
ipython wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a low ranking employee in Cincinnati divulged corporate trade secrets, they'd be tried and convicted. If a low ranking employee in Shanghai did the same, what can the US company do? Not much. So it's a low risk activity, that is also actively encouraged and in many cases financed by the Chinese government. This is in no way intended to be disparaging of folks who are of Chinese descent, but rather a reflection of…

Would you get tried in the US for interning at a company and then go to a competitor with all your inside knowledge ? [edit: barring a paid non compete agreement] Then a step further from that, sure there are laws to prevent you from wholesale lifting corporate data and bringing them out as you leave, but as many laws it will be extremely difficult to detect and prove that happened in many low profile cases. That's w…

For the level of copying being discussed, the scenario to compare to is when Google waymo sued Uber for copying files for hundreds of millions of dollars. They were caught copying source files & design docs.

Both for software products and manufacturing products, that's what is going on: exact copies of source code, assembly line configs, etc. Many folks write off selling to China for reasons like this. Initially that means underserving one big market for self-defense. Where it gets next-level painful and crazy is when cloners then take their derived works back to the international market to compete directly with the inventors. By then it has been tweaked, but the core is still the clone.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#467

Post by JorgeGT »

the-dude wrote: post #425
iancmceachern wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't that. This is engineers deliberately taking tech to somewhere where they know IP laws won't be enforced. It's not like I'm saying they can learn calculus here and then go to China and use calculus to design things. It's that I'm saying they design a very specific thing, a very specific way, for hire, then go make that exact specific thing, that same specific way. If it were in any other country but China,…

> If it were in any other country but China, it wouldn't be allowed to happen. IIRC the USA did plenty of that.

Even inside itself: filmmakers went to remote Los Angeles in the early 1900s because Thomas Edison, in NJ, held most of the patents on motion picture cameras and out west they were much more difficult to enforce.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#468

Post by emptysongglass »

xmcqdpt2 wrote: post #437
emptysongglass wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not "the deal". It's illegal. No one on either side agreed to do this and had that been part of the negotiation, the offended party would have walked away or else agreed to a higher sale price in exchange for technology transfer.

> It's illegal. According to who? Sovereign states have their own laws, that's what makes them sovereign. You claim that companies wouldn't have done business in China (in the times before our current Second Cold War) had they known about the lack of IP law enforcement there. I think companies who outsourced to China knew very well what was going on, and calculated that they'd still come out ahead.

According to international trade law and China itself. [1] People are making absolutely wild, misinformed claims that don't belong here. Claiming executives knew what they were getting into is pure conjecture.

> Sovereign states have their own laws, that's what makes them sovereign.

You're making a grossly misinformed claim here. Sovereign countries also participate outside their borders and are subject to the international agreements they participate in.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_intellectual_...

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#469

Post by BeFlatXIII »

berniedurfee wrote: post #438
the-dude wrote: post #425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it were in any other country but China, it wouldn't be allowed to happen. IIRC the USA did plenty of that.

That’s my understanding as well; that the Industrial Revolution in the US was very much based on IP from outside the US.

Enforcing IP laws is merely pulling the ladder up after the US had its success.

Re: I built Excel for Uber and they ditched it

#470

Post by BeFlatXIII »

prox wrote: post #352
harles wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The espionage really is next level in China. It’s not just reconstructing software (that’s part of it) but stealing binaries (and source where they can) for everything along the way. I worked at a large tech co with an assembly line in China and experienced this first hand. A routine scan of one of our calibration machines turned up a Trojan with a copy of all calibration software squirreled away. Fortunately nothing…

How did this become a thing on a cultural scale? Like that everyone does it and it is almost expected as it were?

Information wants to be free. If it's not, it's your duty to liberate it.
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