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Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

blogs.marketwatch.com

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Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#91

Post by pyre »

bmm6o wrote: post #78
dllthomas wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the typical case, probably, but if you have a large organization you could easily wind up with one exception. What rights these people do and don't have still seems important.

One exception who invited legal trouble for the organization as a matter of some kind of principle would likely find himself no longer a member of the organization. In the best-case scenario, this person gets to see the source code for an internal tool. Who exactly is going to fund this legal battle?

Apparently the company itself if he or she is an officer of the company (as in this case). :P

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#92

Post by jamesjporter »

auctiontheory wrote: post #67
downandout wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the original (very detailed) article. According to it, everything he copied was non-proprietary. Almost all of it was open source stuff.

According to it, everything he copied was non-proprietary. Almost all of it was open source stuff. That doesn't make any sense. If the code truly were FOSS, why on earth would he copy it from his employer when he could eliminate legal risk by downloading it off the open internet? We know he's not stupid.

The story I read about it claimed the following:

He had made changes/improvements to various FOSS projects he was using at Goldman that he wanted to submit as patches upstream but his bosses wouldn't let him. He figured that since he was leaving he might as well take the FOSS code he had modified with him so he could submit patches later. The legality of this maneuver is tenuous at best, as others in this thread have noted, but in my opinion probably doesn't merit years of hounding prosecution and criminal charges.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#93

Post by [deleted] »

lambda wrote: post #79

If anyone's interested, I found the appeals court ruling finding him not guilty of violating federal law, and leading to his release, on PACER, uploaded to the Internet Archive so you can access it without a paywall via RECAP: https://ia700209.us.archive.org/9/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.35... The basic argument hinges on the three counts, related to three laws he was alleged to have broken: the Economic Espionage Act, t…

[deleted]

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#94

Post by beagle3 »

lambda wrote: post #79

If anyone's interested, I found the appeals court ruling finding him not guilty of violating federal law, and leading to his release, on PACER, uploaded to the Internet Archive so you can access it without a paywall via RECAP: https://ia700209.us.archive.org/9/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.35... The basic argument hinges on the three counts, related to three laws he was alleged to have broken: the Economic Espionage Act, t…

IANAL, but if I understand correctly, to claim copyright infringement, they would have had to register the work with the library of congress, and essentially make it publicly viewable - which I assume they didn't want.

Copyright in this kind of case is usable almost exclusively by GPL style licenses, where the code is already available.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#95

Post by sanxiyn »

Let me quote from Wikipedia here:

"On 8 September 2005, the Seoul Central District Court ruled that the GPL was not material to a case dealing with trade secrets derived from GPL-licensed work. Defendants argued that since it is impossible to maintain trade secrets while being compliant with GPL and distributing the work, they are not in breach of trade secrets. This argument was considered without ground."

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#96

Post by jessaustin »

melling wrote: post #17
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. He works in an industry that does not allow you to email code home or copy it off of company computers. Goldman might be a little different, but where I've worked, this was definitely a no, no, and you could easily be fired for doing it.

...you could easily be fired for doing it.

Except he wasn't fired; he was sent to federal prison. Those two results are not equivalent.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#97

Post by jessaustin »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #74
wtvanhest wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If all the changes were only his idea, this may be a reasonable assertion, but at large firms like goldman, the modifications he was making to code very, very likely came from insight from other team members. If he incorporated other's insight in to his open source code by adding more code, I would view his actions in an extremely negative light.

Of course. At an investment bank such as GS, no code or algorithm is written that isn't checked by traders and managers...

Very dry humor!

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#98

Post by sillysaurus2 »

lambda wrote: post #79

If anyone's interested, I found the appeals court ruling finding him not guilty of violating federal law, and leading to his release, on PACER, uploaded to the Internet Archive so you can access it without a paywall via RECAP: https://ia700209.us.archive.org/9/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.35... The basic argument hinges on the three counts, related to three laws he was alleged to have broken: the Economic Espionage Act, t…

Is he on trial again after an appeals court already found him not guilty? The article is a little unclear on that point. First it says he's suing Goldman to recoup losses, and then at the end it says:

Aleynikov has pleaded not guilty and is waiting for his trial in New York State Court.

Does "not guilty" refer to the trial in which he's suing them? Or is there another trial even though he's already been found not guilty (double jeopardy)?

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#99

Post by sanxiyn »

sillysaurus2 wrote: post #98
lambda wrote: post #79

If anyone's interested, I found the appeals court ruling finding him not guilty of violating federal law, and leading to his release, on PACER, uploaded to the Internet Archive so you can access it without a paywall via RECAP: https://ia700209.us.archive.org/9/items/gov.uscourts.nysd.35... The basic argument hinges on the three counts, related to three laws he was alleged to have broken: the Economic Espionage Act, t…

Is he on trial again after an appeals court already found him not guilty? The article is a little unclear on that point. First it says he's suing Goldman to recoup losses, and then at the end it says: Aleynikov has pleaded not guilty and is waiting for his trial in New York State Court. Does "not guilty" refer to the trial in which he's suing them? Or is there another trial even though he's already been found not gui…

United States recognizes a legal doctrine of dual sovereignity, so a state can try what the federal government already tried.

Re: Russian programmer fights Goldman Sachs and wins one round

#100

Post by damian2000 »

melling wrote: post #17
downandout wrote: post #5

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. He works in an industry that does not allow you to email code home or copy it off of company computers. Goldman might be a little different, but where I've worked, this was definitely a no, no, and you could easily be fired for doing it.

Yes he did something wrong and deserved to be fired (if he was still working there), but he definitely doesn't deserve to be facing these ludicrous trumped up charges.

Goldman Sachs have come out of this as the bad guy, throwing their massive legal resources against a single individual.

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