Slashdot Mirror
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.'"
I worked for a startup where our whole product line was based on a voice core that one of the developers had stolen from his previous employer. Ironically, it ended up killing the company -- the developer wouldn't share the code with anyone and didn't have the skill set to make the sort of changes to it we needed. In the end, we had to try and build a new core from scratch, which just put us even farther behind.
Of course, Google ain't some startup run by a bunch of shit-for-brains dysfunctional asshole managers (not that I'm bitter or anything). Just given the sort of company Google has been (aka, not stupid), if the claims pan out it seems to me most likely that this is a situation where this developer came in and unpacked some work he'd done elsewhere -- hell, I have a set of scripts I've developed over the years that I take with me from company to company so I don't have to rewrite them (of course, none of them face the outside or even provide output to anyone other than me).
If that's the case, and assuming this developer actually didn't have any legal rights to this code, it seems to be like Google shouldn't be liable unless this company can prove they used the code knowing it was swiped; otherwise, the lawsuit should be against this developer (not that the developer has hugely deep pockets or an impending IPO to work against).
Alternatively, isn't it possible that this developer just reimplemented the same sort of paradigm he was used to and that caused the same sort of malfunctions? This doesn't seem to far-fetched to me, especially if the bugs are in the overall logic of the coding rather than just a misspelling here or there. I know I've made the same sorts of mistakes even on a complete reimplementation just because nobody had caught them previously...
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
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!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
If by "popular" you mean "only used by a handful of dorks performing a sort of digital circle-jerk", then yeah, it's popular...
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."
Maybe it's true. Neatly dismissing the accuser because the defendant is Google seems foolish to me.
If we want unbiased courts, the first thing to do is become unbiased ourselves.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
I don't know too many software engineers that don't keep at least a library of souce code from one development job to another, regardless of the "rules". However, it seems really bold to me to say your not going to create a competing service and then create one that is named after you.
Six score characters.
Brevity being wit's soul
I have enough space.
It was Affinity that was rejecting the neutral expert, and Google that was offering.
Who do you get to be an expert to tell you something's not obvious? The least insightful person you can find? -J Roberts
My Google Stock!
...Wait Google's not public yet... whew
This is Orkut saying that HE offered a neutral party to look and Affinity (the one's sueing Google) have refused the offer.
The only one's trying to 'pull a SCO' here is Affinity...
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
I guess posting this conundrum is my way of abstaining...
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..
US$0.02++
Open source social network software does exist, it's called PeopleAggregator, launched by Mark Canter of ex-Macromedia and the link goes to the Slashdot discussion of the product.
Doesn't have all the features that some networks have, but there are plenty of Web coders out there.
No. That is one value of closed source. Another value is profit.
Not everything is analogous to cars. Car analogies rarely work.
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
The truth is an offense, but not a sin.------R. N. Marley
/* I worked for a company that had source code stolen by a former programmer, who went on to produce a very similar product for another company at about half the price. We saw identical functionality, shortcomings, even a case of a same hideously ugly sprite, and after siezing computers gobs of identical source code. Before a judge, they argued that given the same task, identical source code may result. The judge was not a technical judge who listened to arguments on this for about half a year before excusing himself... after a new judge was reassigned I remember we had Plauger lined up to testify on the ridiculousness of this assertion... while examining his copy of the code he also apparently found that identical tasks were producing identical whitespace, thanks to the original programmer's (the guy didn't even limit himself to stealing what he wrote) habit of hitting the spacebar before hitting enter on the end of every line. When this evidence was introduced the other company cut their guy loose and tried to claim ignorance. Not sure what happened there, as by this time it had dragged on long enough that they had to start letting people go, including me, and our company never recovered... */
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
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.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
a simple promise won't really hold much water in court.
Bah! Not according to contract law in the US...
Have a look here: A contract is any promise or set of promises made by one party to another for the breach of which the law provides a remedy. The promise or promises may be express (either written or oral) or may be implied from circumstances. and here: Contrary to common wisdom, an informal exchange of promises can still be binding and legally as valid as a written contract.An oral promise can be just as legally binding as any written agreement.
It doesn't say that Google offered a specific neutral expert. I'm sure that either way the results might turn out, that Google wants it over quick. It's trivial to find a disinterested third party to look at code and decide if Google is in the wrong or not. If they are, they can settle, if not, then Affinity lays off.
Why spend hundreds of thousands or millions on lawyers when evidence can be obvious to a CS prof agreeable to both parties or something like that?
Unless it's an attempt to disrupt commerce, of course. While people can use your free service, I'm having difficulty selling mine. If I can make it difficult for you, I can take you out of the marketplace.
-PM
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
I was so sure it was written by a Finn that I didn't bother checking.
You see, 'orkut' is colloquial Finnish for 'orgasms', which seemed both appropriate and something a Finnish nerd would come up with to describe social interaction.
The power of wishful thinking...
Obviously, this list of bugs proves Orkut copied his code!
Best Buy can have you arrested