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Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

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Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#61

Post by reginaldjcooper »

sneak wrote: post #27
waffle_ss wrote: post #20

On the night of the arrest—without an arrest warrant—Serge waived his right to call a lawyer. He phoned his wife and told her what had happened and that a bunch of F.B.I. agents were on the way to their home to seize their computers, and to please let them in—though they had no search warrant, either. Then he sat down and politely tried to clear up the F.B.I. agent's confusion. "He was completely not interested in th…

That video is right up there with knowing about 83b elections as some of the most valuable information one can possibly possess. I rewatch it annually and send out mass emails to all my friends and family when I do reminding them to do so as well.

Can you add "jury nullification" to the mass emails also? That's what I tell my friends and family about.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#62

Post by GeneralMayhem »

An interesting takeaway from this piece is that GS is blatantly and systematically violating the terms of the MIT license, GPL, and whatever else they happen to get their hands on. I'd love nothing more than for the FSF to take them to court over it.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#63

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

vasilipupkin wrote: post #56
vasilipupkin wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In our industry( HFT ) generally, you sign all sorts of agreements which specifically prohibit you from taking any code whatsoever from your employer without specific authorization to do so. Michael Lewis article almost makes it sound like its Goldman's fault. But the fact is, he signed agreements that prohibited him from doing stuff like this and then did it anyway

if he really wanted to take only open source code, he could have cleared it with his managers and his compliance officer, and they would have let him take stuff that is clearly open source most likely.

>if he really wanted to take only open source code, he could have cleared it with his managers and his compliance officer, and they would have let him take stuff that is clearly open source most likely.

The VF story addressed that (page 4, near the bottom). According to Aleynikov, GS cared not a bit for the terms of the Open Source license and considered anything that ever made it into their systems as GS proprietary code.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#65

Post by ig1 »

fnordfnordfnord wrote: post #63
vasilipupkin wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if he really wanted to take only open source code, he could have cleared it with his managers and his compliance officer, and they would have let him take stuff that is clearly open source most likely.

>if he really wanted to take only open source code, he could have cleared it with his managers and his compliance officer, and they would have let him take stuff that is clearly open source most likely. The VF story addressed that (page 4, near the bottom). According to Aleynikov, GS cared not a bit for the terms of the Open Source license and considered anything that ever made it into their systems as GS proprietary…

With the vast majority of open source software licences (including the GPL) you're perfectly entitled to integrated it into your propriety code without releasing it if you're not distributing it externally.

The only exception of any size is the Affero GPL but even that only applies if you use the code in an external customer facing service.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#66

Post by GeneralMayhem »

danielweber wrote: post #59
GeneralMayhem wrote: post #39

This makes me angry. Not just the story itself, but the way VF goes about telling it, which commits the same sins (albeit with better intent) as Goldman Sachs. "So-called 'subversion repository'?" Why don't we just accuse him of summoning demons while we're at it?

Michael Lewis is a great writer about economics. He appears to have gotten out of his depth here.

Wow, I don't know why the name didn't register. Yeah, he's spectacular when writing about economics or sports.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#67

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #62

An interesting takeaway from this piece is that GS is blatantly and systematically violating the terms of the MIT license, GPL, and whatever else they happen to get their hands on. I'd love nothing more than for the FSF to take them to court over it.

Me too, in principle, but realistically I think it would be a poor bet to make. Given the legal resources available to the respective parties there is a real danger that GS would win despite the merits, and possibly even set some precedent that Open Source folk would not find favorable.

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#68

Post by vidarh »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #62

An interesting takeaway from this piece is that GS is blatantly and systematically violating the terms of the MIT license, GPL, and whatever else they happen to get their hands on. I'd love nothing more than for the FSF to take them to court over it.

That's only true if they distribute the code, is it not?

Re: Did Goldman Overstep in Criminally Charging Its Ex-Programmer?

#70

Post by freyr »

GeneralMayhem wrote: post #39

This makes me angry. Not just the story itself, but the way VF goes about telling it, which commits the same sins (albeit with better intent) as Goldman Sachs. "So-called 'subversion repository'?" Why don't we just accuse him of summoning demons while we're at it?

Maybe I'm giving him too much credit, but I think the author's emphasizing that the term itself sounds like damning evidence to anyone who doesn't know better, since subversion means "a systematic attempt to overthrow or undermine a government or political system by persons working secretly from within." He's pointing out that agent used such terms without understanding them (or exploited the public's ignorance to make their case). That's why he put it in quotes.

Lewis goes on to explain, later in the article, that subversion repositories are commonly used and aren't evil. He could have explicitly spelled out that the term subversion relates to version control, but I think he explained it adequately enough given the intended audience.

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