Affinity Engines Says Google Stole Orkut Code

GillBates0 writes "Wired's reporting that a social networking software company called Affinity Engines has filed a lawsuit against Google, claiming that much of the source code behind Orkut, the search engine's popular social service, was stolen by former engineer Orkut Buyukkokten. They claim that he illegally took the code the he had written for the company -- which he co-founded -- with him when he joined Google and that Buyukkokten promised Affinity Engines that he wouldn't develop a competing social network service for Google. '"In its initial investigation, AEI uncovered a total of nine unique software bugs ... in AEI's inCircle product that were also present in Orkut.com," according to the lawsuit.'"

Comments

Why?

[FortKnox]

Why would someone lay claim to that unscalably, buggy pile of crap they call orkut code?

It breaks regularly, and when it is running, its slow as dirt. Honestly, I'd just suck it up and not admit that it was mine!

"Popular"

[Darlington]

Orkut, the search engine's popular social service

If by "popular" you mean "only used by a handful of dorks performing a sort of digital circle-jerk", then yeah, it's popular...

Re:"Popular"

[finkployd]

If by "popular" you mean "only used by a handful of dorks performing a sort of digital circle-jerk", then yeah, it's popular...

You are talking about the internet right?

Finkployd

Re:"Popular"

[Alan]

5-digits? Bah, youngster!

Back in my day....

Re:"Popular"

[a_timid_mouse]

I'd really like to meet that 0.297th person. They must be really skinny, or maybe really short.

Re:"Popular"

[error502]

You are talking about the internet right?

...I thought he was talking about Slashdot.

Re:"Popular"

[Anonymous Coward]

See previous comment about "digital circle-jerk".

Eh?

[Ford Prefect]

Given how unstable and unreliable Orkut has been lately, I reckon Google should sue back! :-)

Oh dear

[TwistedSpring]

If you have made promises like that to your former company, it's a pretty dumb idea to name the software that publically breaks those promises with your own name.

"Hay guys, I won't develop any social networking services for rival companies or use the code I wrote for you!"
"Cool Orkut, thanks, that'd be legally binding then."
*several months later*
"Hmm, I think I'll call the service 'Orkut'. They'll never know it was me."

Re:Oh dear

[Anixamander]

Better to call it Orkut than his last name which is way too close to "Bukkake."

Then again, that's kind of a social thing too.

Stolen code

[gcaseye6677]

Update: AEI asked to produce stolen code, claims it is in a briefcase in Germany that their lawyer will bring to court, when he gets around to it.

Re:Stolen code

[hoggoth]

In another update, AEI was asked to produce the stolen code, and claims it is being held in a database that will crash and become corrupted if they make a copy of the data for anyone to read.

Oh no!

[doombob]

My Google Stock!


...Wait Google's not public yet... whew

Re:Hey my user page shows it was rejected...

[ecklesweb]

Hmmm...as a moderator you've put me in quite a quandry here. I know I'm supposed to mark "grousing about rejected submissions" as Offtopic, but what the hell do I do when folks are "grousing about accepted submissions"?

I guess posting this conundrum is my way of abstaining...

Affinity and SCO

[Victor Tramp]

Hmm,

I wonder if the fine folks over at SCO will bother to watch this.. If it turns out Affinity has a real case, SCO will see stark differences between what they're trying to pass off as a case of misappropriation, and how the Real World(tm) functions..

Just so I'm clear...

[Poseidon88]

"In its initial investigation, AEI uncovered a total of nine unique software bugs ... in AEI's inCircle product that were also present in Orkut.com," So they're suing him because he stole their proprietary bugs?

Re:Just doesn't sound like Google to me...

[DamienMcKenna]

"dysfunctional asshole manager"...

I think I know him..

and the moral of the story is...

[dingbatdr]

If you are going to pirate some code from your
old company and bring it to your new company,
make sure you debug it before the world sees it.

dtg

Re:Just doesn't sound like Google to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dysfunctional asshole manager must be the worst job ever.

AEI Better shut up...

[drdreff]

If their product runs on UNIX, they're code belongs to SCO. They obviously did a terrible job of prtecting SCO's IP when they allowed Orkut to leave the company with his memory intact. Expect Darl to sue AEI in the next week and Google the next. Just for kicks I'll bet the sue Friendster for "Incitement to commit IP theft"

Re:Really?

[Dun Malg]

Are people really running around trailing all of the code from all of the gigs they've had and just randomly incorporating it into other things? That just seems rather disconcerting to me.

It's insane isn't it? That's like a carpenter bringing the hammer he used on the previous job with him to use on my house! The nerve!

Here's the list of the 9 bugs!

[callipygian-showsyst]

I just got the list of the 9 bugs found in Orkut that prove it was a copy:

• Those 18-year-old cheerleaders are really 45-year-old fat, bald men!
• There's a member named J*sus Chr*st that's not actually the son of G-d
• It's PAINFULLY SLOW
• The forums are lame
• There's only one person named "Robert" in the community "People Named 'Robert'"
• You can be friends with *both* John Kerry and George Bush
• Half of the users speak in unintelligible "foreign" languages instead of English
• Kevin Rosewon't approve any friend requests.
• The scrapbooks fill up with crap.

Obviously, this list of bugs proves Orkut copied his code!