Microsoft Employee Allegedly Hacked AltaVista

Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by rd4tech · 2004-07-10 02:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

Microsoft acknowledged yesterday that Chavet is a Microsoft employee but declined to name the team on which he works.
Too Obvious

However, three other people with knowledge of Chavet's Microsoft employment confirmed that he has been working on the MSN Search effort
Too unconfirmed

But, if the guy is such an expert inthe search field, isn't it posible that source code was his? How would that impact everything from a legal point?

Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by arieswind · 2004-07-10 02:28 · Score: 4, Insightful

Because, most companies make you sign an agreement that anything you write becomes the property of the company, so you just cant pick up and take everything you've written with you when you leave.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by LostCluster · 2004-07-10 02:28 · Score: 5, Informative

But, if the guy is such an expert inthe search field, isn't it posible that source code was his? How would that impact everything from a legal point?

When you write code in a work for hire relationship, you do not own the code you wrote. Your employer owns it, and when you and your employer break up you lose all access to it.

Besides, the charges right now don't center around the source code, they center arround the claim that he illegally accessed a computer system (by using a friend's account) and then caused electronic "damage" to it. This really is more of an ex-employee hacking case than a source code ownership issue right now.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by rd4tech · 2004-07-10 02:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

So what if you do sign that, you do go to the next job, and you do the same type of job for a more popular company. and the previous suckers decide to sue the heck out of you just to extarct a huge settlement from the bigger company? Even if you didn't remember one single line, how'll you prove it?
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by arieswind · 2004-07-10 02:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

Prove what? If you worked for AltaVista, wrote their search engine, quit, joined Microsoft, and wrote the same exact thing, then yes, you can and probably will be sued
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by JAgostoni · 2004-07-10 02:40 · Score: 1

If you worked on something big enough, they will make you sign a non-compete clause as well. Barring you from working for a competing company for x years.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by JAgostoni · 2004-07-10 02:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

I agree. But I had alwasy wondered if (a) there are ways around this and (b) you are bound to at least use some of the same concepts (we'll say an authentication piece or something) that you will certinaly use your lessons learned from your previous company. Of course, if you are working on closed source for both companies, you could probably get away with it as long as you don't make it blaringly obvious.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Fishstick · 2004-07-10 02:44 · Score: 2, Informative

>Even if you didn't remember one single line, how'll you prove it?

Well, they also typically make you sign a non-compete. They don't have to prove that you are re-using source code you wrote for them, they can go and get a TRO to keep you from working at a company that they can convince a judge is their competition.

In my admittedly limited experience, this doesn't happen that much, tho. Only twice at the company I've worked for the last 10+ years.

Once two guys quit at the same time and the higher-ups found out they were going to work for a company in the same field -- they sent the lawyers out after them and threatened to make their lives miserable if they went to work at this other company (and made sure the hiring company knew about it). Both of them ended up staying here (and got a nice settlement offer, rumor has it).

The other case was a little different. Guy left and said he was changing careers, going into stock brokerage business or something (burned a lot of bridges too when he left -- lots of bad feelings with his boss). He turned up months later at a meeting with a client working for a competing company. Someone must have decided to make an example, because they went after him like he was OJ Simpson trying to join an all-white country club.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 02:56 · Score: 5, Informative

It's also not a new practice for Microsoft. Examine the David Cutler case, where Microsoft hired away one of the core developers of VMS to help create a new, server class operating system. That new operating system was called "NT", and Mr. Cutler hired away his old team from DEC and pasted in quite a lot code from the planned but cancelled "Prism" release of VMS. The lawsuits were quite nasty, and DEC decided not to press for triple damages on every copy of NT sold in return for NT always being supported on the new Alpha chips from DEC. Of course, Intel then stole the technologies of the Alpha to use in the Pentium IV, so that guarantee became pretty useless pretty soon, and the NT on Alpha actually never worked well due to its lack of support. But hey, better to settle for a pittance in out-of-court settlement rather than actually make the thieves pay for it by breaking their fiscal back in court, right? After all, what's good for a big business is good for America, right? And it's better to let a thief get away with it and save your lawyer's fees than make sure they can never do it again and teach a valuable lesson to other large corporations, right? The hard lessons of David Cutler stealing VMS to create NT worked really well to prevent Intel stealing the Alpha technologies to create the Pentium IV, right?
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by wideBlueSkies · 2004-07-10 02:58 · Score: 4, Interesting

My company gets around this by forcing you to forfeit your options and other vested financial incentives if you quit and move to a company that they label as a competitor.

More corporate bullying. So since we're a banking firm, folks are forced to leave for mostly insurance, and other financial (like mutual fund houses), and even shipping companies like UPS. But nobody ever leaves our bank for another bank.

Unless the other bank wants you so badly that they compensate for the lost incentives. And they'd probably only do this for someone who's an expert at what they do. This brings us back to the original question..once you're there, how do you (or ou new employer) avoid getting sued because you're writing the same or similiar stuff?

wbs.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by LostCluster · 2004-07-10 03:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

If you can replicate code you wrote before from memory alone, then you have written the same code twice and are not copying anything.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by PierceLabs · 2004-07-10 04:08 · Score: 1

Depends ENTIRELY on the state and the laws there. Some employment contracts are worded such that you are prohibited from leaving your employer and going somewhere else and working on the exact same type of system. Some states have laws that allow this type of 'tort', and others don't.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by MsGeek · 2004-07-10 04:17 · Score: 3, Interesting

Also, there is the matter of Gates and Allen dumpster diving at Dartmouth to get the guts of their Microsoft Altair Basic, and Gates, Allen and Ballmer paying the author of QDOS a pittance to get the source and "innovate" their MS-DOS from it. This is SOP for Microsoft. I'm not surprised. The surprising thing about this whole affair is the fact that this guy GOT CAUGHT.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by 1u3hr · 2004-07-10 04:44 · Score: 1

Even if you didn't remember one single line, how'll you prove it?
In this case, he had copied large slabs of code to his PC. So down the road, MS will have to prove that they don;t have any Altavista code.
MS has made a policy of luring away key staff of leading companies in areas they want to move into, and often been accused of blatantly stealing technology. Even when they've lost in court, they usually win -- making a small cash settlement after they've won the market and destroyed all competition.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-10 04:56 · Score: 1

Well, they also typically make you sign a non-compete.

These aren't binding in many states.

they sent the lawyers out after them and threatened to make their lives miserable if they went to work at this other company

That would be an actionable offense in some states; a quick road to early retirement for the party so treated.

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-10 05:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

This utterly incorrect in any State of the United States, and probably in most first world countries.

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by slittle · 2004-07-10 05:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, umm... got some linkage on that whole DEC suing Microsoft and Intel "stealing" Alpha's secrets bit?

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 05:34 · Score: 0

Yeah, umm... umm... umm... Fucking google it!
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by cdrguru · 2004-07-10 05:41 · Score: 1

In my experience it almost never happens. No legal wrangling or threats either. Huh?
It is very simple. You are working at Company A and decide Company B would pay more and have better working conditions. Unless Company B is staffed by idiots and thieves, the first thing they ask for after your name is to see a copy of the non-compete agreement you signed with Company A. They know you signed one - everyone has to sign one. If you can't produce it, they can probably get a copy through some back-channel anyway. If it says you can't work for them specifically, that is probably not going to hold up. If it says you can't work on the same kind of stuff, they might find a non-conflicting place for you or drop you like a hot potato.
Yes, I have been on interviews where they have three different non-compete documents from the company I was coming from and asked which one I had signed. It doesn't take a staff a lawyers to figure this out. Hiring someone that is going to cause you legal trouble isn't worth it at all.
With Microsoft all I can assume is they really are staffed by idiots and thieves if they left themselves open to this kind of thing.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Fishstick · 2004-07-10 06:06 · Score: 1

I never meant to imply that it was right -- just that it was not very common but worked in that case.

Thing is, you would probably have to be prepared for a protracted battle and have the funds for legal help. These guys both had families, morgages and car payments -- They signed agreements as terms of employment; the company let them know they would "vigorously pursue enforcement of those agreements" within their legal rights. The company offering to hire these two guys didn't want them bad enough to have to deal with getting lawyers involved, and didn't offer any help.

In the end, these two guys didn't want the new jobs bad enough either to put up a fight. They talked to a lawyer who told them they would probably win in the end, but only after months of screwing around, during which time they would not be employed (they would be ejnoined from showing up to work and the new company could retract the offers and hire someone else if they wanted to).

Our company offered (reportedly, they will neither confirm or deny) a settlement which included a "bonus" if they would tear up their resignations and forget the whole thing.

Sucks, I know, but that's how it worked out.

--
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-10 06:14 · Score: 1

This utterly incorrect in any State of the United States, and probably in most first world countries.
Maybe if there was a patented algorithm in it. Otherwise, no it's not. The person effectively rewrote it from scratch, so it would never stand up in court. Furthermore, it would take time to rewrite the code, and by that time, the other company would have the advantage of time. Companies usually have non-compete clauses in their employee contract for this reason. They know that they can't prevent you from going somewhere else, and duplicating what you did for them, so they try to prevent you from working for a competitor for a year.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Artifakt · 2004-07-10 06:23 · Score: 1

Ways around this?

Keep a developer's custom toolkit, consisting only of things you wrote. Put in it only things you did completely on your own time, or better yet, only things you did in school or between jobs. ABOVE ALL, DON"T WORK ON THEM ON COMPANY TIME OR COMPANY MACHINES. You might keep code you wrote outside of employment hours, that is not closely related to any project the company does, but I'd be careful even there. For the things you should keep, don't dispose of working copies but hold onto them to show your development process. Accurate timestamps there may help show that you worked on a project nights and weekends and that it took the time you would expect under those circumstances. Also document when you did your work in a log and don't just rely on timestamps.
Don't copy from the kit to work projects. If there is something in the kit that would be useful on a work project, tell your boss "I've got something that could be useful on project X, but I did it before I started here. Can we get legal to liscence it from me real cheap so I don't give up my rights?"
Be prepared to cut your current employer a really sweet deal, much cheaper than paying you to rework the idea from scratch, so you can keep your work to use elsewhere later. Be prepared to give your employer a pretty good deal, even if they want all rights. Remember, they know what they expected to pay you to develop it from scratch, (if the project comes in on time and budget) - That's the position they expect to start bargaining from. If you're not already on a firm footing of honesty with your employer, just don't do it at all.
If you don't want to share your code with your employer, this still works somewhat to protect you in a lawsuit, but some companies are just plain paranoid, and sue ex-employees at the drop of a hat.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by sql*kitten · 2004-07-10 07:28 · Score: 2, Informative

Examine the David Cutler case, where Microsoft hired away one of the core developers of VMS to help create a new, server class operating system.

Umm, Cutler quit DEC in a fit of pique over the amount of autonomy he had to run projects. He took his team with him.

Now, Microsoft aren't above poaching staff. They did it to Borland, everyone knows. But Cutler is a different story.

NT on Alpha actually never worked well due to its lack of support.

NT on Alpha didn't get much support 'cos no-one bought it! All the Alpha users were running their windows apps under FX!32 and running OpenVMS to use their CAD and CFD packages and whatnot. Same story with NT on MIPS and PowerPC, no-one bought 'em.

Don't even argue with me on this, 'cos I was one of those people. I-DEAS and Fluent most of the time, the occasional Word doc, that's how people used their Alphas.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by man_of_mr_e · 2004-07-10 09:05 · Score: 2, Insightful

Umm.. how exactly would the guts of Dartmouth Basic (a compiled language, written for the PDP processor composing hundreds of K of source) help MS create Altair Basic (an interpreted language, in 8080 assembly that was less than 4k in size and was only barely similar to DM Basic)?

Methinks you've been listening to too many urban myths and jumping to conclusions.

I have read a comment from gates in which he admits to dumpster diving for operating system listings to understand how others wrote code, but nothing that says he used Dartmouth Basic listings as his basis for BASIC. Are you going to suggest that looking at the Linux kernel formed the basis of Slashcode?

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by man_of_mr_e · 2004-07-10 09:13 · Score: 3, Interesting

Oh, and Tim Patterson, the author of QDOS was indeed paid a "pittance" initially, but as soon as MS got the IBM contract, they hired Patterson and he became one of the first "Microsoft Millionaires".

Have you even made a cursury examination of the events you seem so certain about?

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by BlackHawk-666 · 2004-07-10 11:12 · Score: 1

Copyright laws are fairly clear on this. When an employee writes code, it is owned by the company that employs him/her. So no, it couldn't be his code.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by fatphil · 2004-07-10 11:51 · Score: 1

"Prism"? Are you sure it wasn't "Mica"?

I thought Prism was the processor line that never came to market, not the software. The DEC code name for the Alpha processor family was "AXP", and one joke was that AXP stood for "almost exactly prism", IIRC.

FP.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by fatphil · 2004-07-10 12:31 · Score: 1

You're confusing
"from memory"
with
"from scratch"

If he did it in the past, then it's the former, not the latter.

FP.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-10 13:22 · Score: 1

You're confusing "from memory" with "from scratch".
No, I'm not. What I said was that the, "person effectively rewrote it from scratch". Since he didn't bring a electronic or print copy of the source code with him, he still had to type it in, integrate it, and debug it. In other words, he started with zero files and started typing.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 13:55 · Score: 1

Check your references. Google reports plenty like this one, describing the attempt by DEC to port VMS to an alternative hardware platform. http://www3.sympatico.ca/n.rieck/docs/Windows-NT_i s_VMS_re-implemented.html
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Phragmen-Lindelof · 2004-07-10 17:36 · Score: 1

I ran Windows NT on my 164 Alpha for a few (several?) years until I switched to Linux. My Alpha (which sits next to my AMD64) can still be dual booted to NT or Linux, although I have not used NT for a long time. (It is too much trouble to determine the exact years.) Anyway, NT on Alpha worked better than any other MS OS that I know of.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by orin · 2004-07-10 17:57 · Score: 1

The book "Showstopper" stuggests that DEC had fired most of Cuttler's team before MS approached him about working on NT. One of Cuttler's conditions on going to MS was that the team that had been fired from DEC got to work with him at MS.

I'm not sure that your allegations of theft are all that supportable either. Perhaps your sources are different - I'm relying on the book Showstopper which seemed to suggest that Cuttler was essentially "pushed" rather than "stealing stuff and jump ship" which your post seems to intimate.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by glesga_kiss · 2004-07-10 23:29 · Score: 1

My company gets around this by forcing you to forfeit your options and other vested financial incentives if you quit and move to a company that they label as a competitor.
Fine. Just line up a job at McDonalds starting one week before your real new job, and quit it after two days. You no longer left for a competator, unless your bank is in the habit of making people digest shit. Oh hang-on, banks *do* make you swallow heaps of bull, so maybe that's not all that good an idea...
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by fatphil · 2004-07-11 02:29 · Score: 1

Do what?!?! You're confusing hardware with software. My references are sound:

"""
Clearly three fragmented efforts could not be continued. There was also a realisation that a serious corporate effort would be needed. In April 1985, Dave Cutler was asked to lead a cross-functional team to define a corporate
RISC architecture and develop implementation plans for hardware and software. The architecture team consisting of Dave Cutler, Dileep Bhandarkar (VAX Architecture Group), Wayne Cardoza (VAX/VMS Operating System Group), Dave Orbits (High Preformance Systems Group), and Rich Witek (Semiconductor Engineering Group) published the first draft of the PRISM (Parallel Reduced Instruction Set Machine) architecture specification in August 1985.
PRISM was initially defined as a 64-bit RISC architecure ....
"""

i.e. PRISM was the _hardware_, not the software.

Who am I quoting there?
Dileep Bhandarkar. You may have heard of him, perhaps?

Alpha Implementations and Architecure, Complete Reference and Guide.
Dileep Bhandarkar.
Digital Press, 1995.
ISBN 1-55558-130-7

I think you need to add "Mica" to your google searches to find the several references to Mica being the _software_ platform that MS ripped off DEC via Cutler.

If you're lucky you might encounter things like the following:
"""
Cutler had been developing a follow-on to VMS at DEC called Mica, and when DEC dropped the project he brought the expertise and some engineers with him to Microsoft. DEC also believed he brought Mica's code to Microsoft and sued.
"""

FP.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by fatphil · 2004-07-11 02:33 · Score: 1

But issues of copyright infringement only concern whether he produced it from memory or not. It's _not_ from scratch if you produce it from memory.
He'd seen it before, he wasn't the copyright owner, he reproduced it, he infringed copyright. It's black and white.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-11 03:14 · Score: 1

You know that. I know that. This other person is fond of talking out of his ass. I do suggest, however, that perhaps he employ an attorney before making any of life's critical IP decisions. Heh.

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-11 03:19 · Score: 1

It pays to know your rights. If the agreement is illegal in your state, you won't actually need to defend it in court. The whole thing would be tossed out in summary judgement, with PREJUDICE, meaning that the plaintiff would not be allowed to bring the case again.

In _some_ states, agreements like this are actually a midemeanor for the _employer_ to make (or offer to make) with the employee. Fat chance indeed that they will actually go to court with it, however I've heard of many, many cases where unscrupulous companies will _threaten_ to in order to browbeat the ignorant and manipulable masses.

I've been party to such agreements. I can only laugh. They are actually worth _less_ than the paper they are written on.

You do realize, don't you, that if an attorney writes up a brief that describes material violations of a contract that is illegal to make in the state in which he alleges the violation occurred, the attorney himself could be in big trouble, right? You can get disbarred for stuff like that.

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-11 03:25 · Score: 1

Maybe if there was a patented algorithm in it. Otherwise, no it's not.

You have no legal right to copy your former employer's code completely from memory, and if you do this, and admit it in court, you may as well hand over all of your material possessions now, along with a significant garnishment of your future wages.

You have consulted neither the law nor an attorney on this subject, and it shows.

The person effectively rewrote it from scratch...

You were talking about doing it from memory. Don't change your story.

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-11 06:17 · Score: 1

Ahh. I see where I might be confusing. I did not mean to intimate that Mr. Cutler was told, by Microsoft, "bring the source code from the locked cabinat". Like the concerns about the person from Altavista whose behavior started this article, and in Mr. Cutler's case confirmed by the guts of Windows NT itself compared to the guts of VMS and by the DEC lawsuits of the time, I claim that Mr. Cutler stole plenty of trade secrets and code from DEC.

Whether he did so under orders from Microsoft before he left DEC is, frankly, irrelevant. I don't have the intimate knowledge of Mr. Cutler's life to hazard a good guess. But it's relevant to Microsoft's continuing behavior of theft. They don't *have* to give orders to steal trade secrets or orders from employee's old companies: it's profitable and effective to allow their new employees to do it themselves to save time on their new work assignments and never censure or punish them for it. Microsoft development teams get funding and resources based, not on cleanness or proper implementation or stability or security of code: they get approval from their management on the basis of sale-able features added. This makes code theft even tougher to detect.

The money made by capitalizing on such theft to add value to your well-funded monopoly and compete against the original developers is easily turned to legal fees to protect against any potential lawsuits. Fighting Microsoft in court tends to bankrupt companies. I'll leave the extensive analyses of the FUD and delay tactics of Microsoft's legal teams to other discussions. But it's clear that whether or not it is ever absolutely stated, they have little problem with such theft as a corporate policy.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-11 06:33 · Score: 1

Hmm. Thank you for the expanded search terms, they lead to enlightening reading. The articles and analyses I was reading made reference to PRISM as the porting of VMS, not the underlying hardware. You've pointed me to interesting stuff. I will plead unclear source information, in that the web references I found without the MICA search term are far less clear and the former DEC employees I know never made that distinction clear. I shall chastise them and myself over beer the next time we go out, and thank you again for the pointers.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by fatphil · 2004-07-11 09:06 · Score: 1

Sorry for being so abrupt.
I get a bit 'defensive' when challenged on Alpha issues.

Phil

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-11 09:46 · Score: 1

You have no legal right to copy your former employer's code completely from memory,
If you were able to, from memory, reconstruct code exactly the way it was coded on the system in question, yes. I will admit that they probably have you there when they examine the new code and their old code.
However, very few people have eidetic memory. When you type in the code the second time, it is not going to be the same. Furthermore, there are probably other people working on the project, and those people are adding their code into the mix. Finally, it's going to take you time to type the code in, integrate it, and debug it. By this time, the competitive advantage of suing you has been lost. Subsequently, the evidence would never stand up in court.
and if you do this, and admit it in court, you may as well hand over all of your material possessions now, along with a significant garnishment of your future wages.
You can truthfully say in court that you wrote similar code. They can't prove that you copied anything. They already know you have the expertise to write the code, and it's not illegal to work for a competitor.
You have consulted neither the law nor an attorney on this subject, and it shows.
Have you? What did your lawyer say? Show me one case where a company sucessfully sued a former employee for typing in code from memory.
You were talking about doing it from memory. Don't change your story.
I didn't. Show me some way to get code from your head into a computer without typing it. They don't make mount points for your brain. You're starting over from scratch.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-11 09:50 · Score: 1

It's _not_ from scratch if you produce it from memory. He'd seen it before, he wasn't the copyright owner, he reproduced it, he infringed copyright. It's black and white.
If this were the case, companies would be able to sue anyone who goes to work for a competitor. "You coded up that mutex exactly the same way on our system."

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-11 09:52 · Score: 1

You know that. I know that. This other person is fond of talking out of his ass.
As are you. What did your lawyer say? Have you ever been sued for working for a competitor?

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-11 10:58 · Score: 1

Have you?

Yes.

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-11 11:49 · Score: 1

Yes.
Can you elaborate? Why did you consult the lawyer? Do you have photographic memory? Were you changing companies? What laws and cases did he quote to you? Can you give me his number? I'd like to consult with him.
I've worked for two competing companies at different times, and I've never had any issues. I've talked with the laywers at GTE duing my exit interview, and this never came up.

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Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by Courageous · 2004-07-11 13:35 · Score: 1

I had contact with this lawyer because he was my intellectual property attorney. Previous to representing me, he presented lectures to an R&D firm I was associated with. Later, he helped me with two patents. I don't forward his contact information to strangers on the internet.

If you _intentionally_ replicate any copyrighted work in sufficient substance, this is per se violation of copyright. It does not require a xerox machine or a disk drive.

If you happen to produce something similar (functionally), because you are experienced and good at what you do, it is NOT a violation of copyright. You later hinted at that, but your story as you began was strong, emphasizing intentional replication. Perhaps you meant replication of function and not replication of the _code_? But you said, to wit: "...replicate code you wrote before from memory alone..."

Intentional replication of _code_ is a violation of copyright. Later replication of functionality, even if quite intentional, is perfectly fine as long as no other legal strictures apply.

If you were to assert that it would be pretty hard for someone to actually replicate very much code, even on purpose, from memory, I'd generally agree. It would, however, still be actionable if it ever occurred.

Hope this helps.

Sorry for letting loose on you earlier, I was cranky....

C//
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by pyrrhonist · 2004-07-11 15:09 · Score: 1

If you _intentionally_ replicate any copyrighted work in sufficient substance, this is per se violation of copyright. It does not require a xerox machine or a disk drive.
Yes, I agree, that is the letter of the law. I do not know the success rate of how this works in practice. I would be curious to know, and that's why I want to ask a lawyer.
If you happen to produce something similar (functionally), because you are experienced and good at what you do, it is NOT a violation of copyright.
Right, that's what I was trying to get across. Most likely, the code isn't even going to be close to what the person did before (at least if I follow my own experience).
You later hinted at that, but your story as you began was strong, emphasizing intentional replication. Perhaps you meant replication of function and not replication of the _code_? But you said, to wit: "...replicate code you wrote before from memory alone..."
Ahhh, I see the confusion here. I did not actually write that particular quote. LostCluster did. I went on the assumption that he did not mean it literally. I assumed he meant that the person did not have photographic memory and had to recreate the code.
Intentional replication of _code_ is a violation of copyright. Later replication of functionality, even if quite intentional, is perfectly fine as long as no other legal strictures apply.
Yes, that's what I'm getting at.
If you were to assert that it would be pretty hard for someone to actually replicate very much code, even on purpose, from memory, I'd generally agree. It would, however, still be actionable if it ever occurred.
Yes, that would definitely be an issue if it could be proved to a judge or jury that the code was similar enough to be copyright infringement.
Hope this helps.
Oh, yeah, definitely. Thanks.
Sorry for letting loose on you earlier, I was cranky....
That's quite alright, I'm not one of those people who equate disagreement with hostility.

--
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Re:Seems like this is happening a lot lately... by einhverfr · 2004-07-16 05:14 · Score: 1

I am not so sure, but IANAL.

It seems that if I write Version of of Uber-Reporting Tool for company A, and then I quit and work for company B and build a similar project that I am in danger of violating Company A's copyrights.

Now, chances are practically that proving copyright infringement are probably pretty low. In most cases the programmer is not going to be working by himself, and may not be working on the same parts of the software. In this case, you may see some similar sylistics but I don't think that mere stylistics are grounds for copyright infringement. If they were, once you published a book with one publisher, they would have a copyright case against any other publisher who published any subsequent books by the same author.

I would expect that copyright protects expressive work which is more than mere stylistics. The question whether, say an authentication algorythm, is expressive content or mere sylistics would need to be for the court to decide.

Secondly, inless you are an extremely unimaginative programmer, I cannot imagine writing the exact same code for one organization that one was writing for another. Every programmer thinks about what he could have done better with this algorythm or that algorythm and when you combine this with changing teams, I think it would be very difficult to prove.

DEC may have had a case against Microsoft with Culver and something like a dozen software engineers leaving the DEC VMS project to work on NT, and every account I can find either indicates that they did sue or that they could have. So this more or less invalidates your point.

But on a practical level, I would doubt that it would likely be a big problem for the reasons I have noted above.

Also, I have a hard time seeing the courts make too much of this unless the circumstances were unusual because anytime you have a continuity of intellect (i.e. being alive with personality and intellect intact) you will have a continuity of expression. If the courts were to say that any level of copying was infringement, then it would effectively be a massive blow to the ability of an employee to seek other work. OTOH, cases like that of Culver stand out as unusual and I could see the courts coming down hard on them.

--

LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP

Bored of these games. by Masque · 2004-07-10 02:23 · Score: 5, Funny

Sounds like someone in this Monopoly(TM) just landed on Go To Jail.

Re:Bored of these games. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:34 · Score: 0

i thought it was quite funny
Re:Bored of these games. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:38 · Score: 0

Do not pass go...Do not collect $200 :)

(Score: -5 Redundant Trolling Flaimbait)
Re:Bored of these games. by rd4tech · 2004-07-10 02:39 · Score: 1

so they'll wait for two turns?
Re:Bored of these games. by MesiahTaz · 2004-07-10 02:46 · Score: 2, Insightful

Let's call Uncle Darl! He's an expert on allegedly stolen source code. There has to be a money-grubbing lawsuit somewhere in this.

--
Are you an open source warrior?
Re:Bored of these games. by Phisbut · 2004-07-10 05:27 · Score: 1

Nah... all he has to do is pay up $50 and he'll be out of there in no time. Unless he had a Get Out Of Jail Free card up his sleeve...

--
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
Re:Bored of these games. by Master+of+Transhuman · 2004-07-10 07:17 · Score: 1

"Unless he had a Get Out Of Jail Free card up his sleeve..."

You mean like Bill Gates and Ken Lay have George Bush? (And no, Lay has not been convicted yet.)

--
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Re:Bored of these games. by falzer · 2004-07-10 07:55 · Score: 1

Correction: Board of these games.
Re:Bored of these games. by DAldredge · 2004-07-10 12:44 · Score: 1

You do know that Kerry has ties to Lay, don't you?
Re:Bored of these games. by Master+of+Transhuman · 2004-07-11 10:22 · Score: 1

Why would that surprise me? Kerry's a politician. You think just because I don't like Bush, I'm a Democrat.

ENNNNNNNNGGGG! Wrong answer. You want to try for "double jeopardy" where the scores can really add up?

OTOH, Bush has much greater ties to Lay. The dollar amounts contributed to the Republicans far exceeded those contributed to the Democrats.

--
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!

Microsoft not involved yet. by LostCluster · 2004-07-10 02:24 · Score: 5, Informative

The question is, did Microsoft know anything about it? How much code was being written into MSN Search?

And if you RTFA, those questions are still unanswered.

The man in question here was a former AltaVista employee, and he allegedly downloaded the secret source code for the crawling engine after leaving the company, but before working for Microsoft.

It seems that so far Microsoft has not been implicated in the investigation at all, and nobody's accusing him of having introduced AltaVista's code into MSN's project. It's an interesting possiblity, but so far there's no authorty making that link.

Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by dealsites · 2004-07-10 02:28 · Score: 1

Stealing is wrong, but AltaVista kinda sucks. I'm sure the brainiacs at Microsoft can come up with something better than AltaVista. In time we will be able to see if they can knock off Google. I'm sure they will embed search technology into thier new OSes, so that would be a huge advantage right there.

--
3 new Gmail invitations availiable
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:38 · Score: 4, Funny

It seems that so far Microsoft has not been implicated in the investigation at all
Oh come on, why let the facts get in the way of bashing Microsoft? You're aware you're reading slashdot right?
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by beacher · 2004-07-10 02:38 · Score: 1

Heh.. I know that AltaVista's code is on one of those machines at MicroSoft... Time to get the FBI crime teams in and confiscate some (ALL!) of the servers.

Wheeeeeeeeeee!
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by JAgostoni · 2004-07-10 02:45 · Score: 1

I don't thik MS has anything to worry about. I think they have proven that their new search engine is like no other (in the fact that it doesn't yet return anything substatial and filters out any anit-Microsoft results).

--

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Web Hosting @ HostForADollar.com
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:48 · Score: 0

OMG!! HE STOLE TEH SOURCE FOR wget!! NOW MSN KNOW HOW TO FLOOD UR SITE WITH FUCKING ANNOYING REPEATED WEB SPIDER REQUESTS!!

insert caps-removing stuff here
hereherehereherehere herehere here herehere herehere here here here hereherehere hhereere
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by Fallen+Andy · 2004-07-10 02:50 · Score: 1

Er. But does anyone actually have to prove anything? Hey given SCO vs. the world, perhaps someone with deep pockets ought to challenge Mutleysoft with lawyers .
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by aardvarkjoe · 2004-07-10 04:13 · Score: 2, Informative

It seems that so far Microsoft has not been implicated in the investigation at all, and nobody's accusing him of having introduced AltaVista's code into MSN's project.
I hope you meant "nobody important," or "nobody with any authority," because accusing Microsoft is exactly what everyone in this discussion is doing.

--

How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by LostCluster · 2004-07-10 04:18 · Score: 1

I wrote that very early in this discussion thread. :)
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by aardvarkjoe · 2004-07-10 04:23 · Score: 1

Well, I suppose that I should admire optimism.

--

How can we continue to believe in a just universe and freedom to eat crackers if we have no ale?
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 05:45 · Score: 0

Of course I RFTA. I submitted the story, didn't I? I even pointed out that the break-ins happened before he was hired by MS so that people won't jump to conclusion. However, do you really expect Microsoft to admit wrong doings? Those questions are what I (and everyone else, I think) wonder what truly happen. We may never know in the former and may find out from AltaVista in the latter.
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by kevlar · 2004-07-10 05:49 · Score: 1

Microsoft would have out right fired him if they had known about this. If he had admitted to hacking another companies site or bringing the code with him to another company, they would assume he'd do the same when leaving Microsoft.
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by mark-t · 2004-07-10 09:00 · Score: 1

Now that's interesting...
What *IF* he had introduced AV's code into an MS project, without, of course, MS realizing the code's _true_ origins... that as far as MS were concerned, this guy was giving them code that they were allowed to use as they saw fit.
And now let's say that AV found out... sure, MS could fire his ass and he could maybe even go to jail, but would MS actually be liable in any way for damages in this case? More importantly, would or could they even be held liable in perpetuity for damages, since the damage once done cannot be undone?

--
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Re:Microsoft not involved yet. by Phragmen-Lindelof · 2004-07-10 17:51 · Score: 1

What (worthwhile) code could he take from MS? Is there some secret GOOD MS code out there?

Quick. someone tell by rebeka+thomas · 2004-07-10 02:24 · Score: 5, Funny

Someone tell Ken Brown of AdTI. I hear they're very interested in exposing the truth of this kind of thing. nonliteral copying, thieving code, stolen from__ oh it's OK if it's given to MS and they'll ignore it?

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RST

Re:Quick. someone tell by killbill! · 2004-07-10 03:00 · Score: 2, Funny

To Ken Brown, what matters is not what you give to MS, but what MS gives you! ;p
Re:Quick. someone tell by Pseudonym · 2004-07-10 15:39 · Score: 1

To Ken Brown, what matters is not what you give to MS, but what MS gives you!

In Soviet... oh, forget it.

--
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});

In other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:24 · Score: 4, Funny

AltaVista demands that anyone using MSN search pay them $699.

Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:41 · Score: 0

And SCO requires 50% of the profits, since AltaVista is clearly derived from UNIX.

Sincerely,
Darl McBride
Re:In other news... by zoloto · 2004-07-10 06:18 · Score: 1

2004's first quarter called, they want darl back.
Re:In other news... by Lacota · 2004-07-10 09:01 · Score: 1

So that brings the total to $699 then. Hot Diggity.

--
It is not a god that would do evil biddings, but only a mortal and its limited knowledge would let such atrocities exist
Re:In other news... by Justin205 · 2004-07-10 20:30 · Score: 1

In other words they'll get revenue of about $699 from that plan.

Seriously, EVERYONE should know Google is superior. Except Bill Gates.

--
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."

Warning by ultrabot · 2004-07-10 02:24 · Score: 4, Funny

This is an example of what can happen when you don't have a centrally controlled company bearing the responsibility and managing the Intellectual Prop... oh wait, nevermind.

--
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak

Re:Warning by tehanu · 2004-07-10 04:19 · Score: 2, Insightful

In a case like this, open-source is actually better. You could just look through the code to see if they actually stole the code and used it in a competing program. Quick, easy, simple. However in this case, if Altavista suspects their code is in MSN, they will most likely have to drag MS through a nasty long court case to see the code to check. They are not guaranteed to win. It will take a lot of money in lawyer's fees and drain people's attention from the business. It will take ages and ages (giving MS chance to use the code to make profit and take business from Altavista or to remove the code and hide the evidence). So in a code-stealing case like this, open-source is actually better than closed source as the case of "did they use the code" is something that can be resolved without an expensive long court case.

Well unless the company is like SCO I suppose...But if SCO had attacked a closed-source company, we'd still be going through a long arduous trial because it's just SCO's tactics, rather than a problem with open-source in general.
Re:Warning by nyseal · 2004-07-10 05:39 · Score: 1

What's your problem with SCO [sic]?

--
[SIG] Remember Mattel handheld games?
Re:Warning by Artifakt · 2004-07-10 06:36 · Score: 1

If Microsoft can quickly determine if there is stolen code in their property, it actually makes sense not to drag things out. If it's there, they will get a very light slap on the wrist at worst, by making sure all the blame falls on the employee, going back to actions before he became an employee. If it's not there, Alta Vista just got a look at a bunch of MS code. If AV develops anything that resembles any part of that code, or is in the process of doing so right now, they become very open to a lawsuit that would be both much larger and much easier to prove than any claim they could make right now against MS. Just asking for that code means AV risks having to drop or rework any projects that might look like they are based on that knowledge.

--
Who is John Cabal?

Microsoft allegedly commits crime by damm0 · 2004-07-10 02:24 · Score: 3, Funny

In other news, school-age child packs own lunch.

Re:Microsoft allegedly commits crime by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 03:35 · Score: 0

Who said anything about Microsoft committing a crime?
Re:Microsoft allegedly commits crime by Chico888 · 2004-07-10 05:54 · Score: 1

In still other news 97% of Slashdot readers prefer Linux to Windows.
Re:Microsoft allegedly commits crime by zoloto · 2004-07-10 06:20 · Score: 1

EVEN STILL, in EVEN OTHER NEWS, 97% of slashdot readers post from Windows even if they do prefer Linux!

History Repeats itself by mp3LM · 2004-07-10 02:24 · Score: 0, Troll

We've heard it before...history repeats itself.
First Apply...and now AltaVista

I wonder if they've stolen stuff from any other company.

Re:History Repeats itself by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:28 · Score: 0

Nooo, not them.

Way to go by obli · 2004-07-10 02:26 · Score: 2, Funny

way to go, they could at least have attacked a good search engine if they wanted to be better competitors.

Re:Way to go by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:32 · Score: 0

idiot. RTFA
Re:Way to go by srenker · 2004-07-10 06:20 · Score: 1

Yes, but Google had one of them firewall thingies protecting their site!

--
My new /. login is fabu10u$.

Been there before by m00nun1t · 2004-07-10 02:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

For years there had been idle speculation about how much stolen code (GPL or otherwise) was in Windows. Yet when the portions of Windows 2000 source code were leaked, MS was found to be squeaky clean. But don't let me stand between you and inevitable tin foil hats.

--
Read reviews of shopping cart software

Re:Been there before by rd4tech · 2004-07-10 02:37 · Score: 1

So you think that stolen code would be like a shuny new watch? It will get modified heavily to fit the existing structures, it's CODE. But I might be wrong...
Re:Been there before by stubear · 2004-07-10 02:37 · Score: 4, Informative

Not to mention that Microsoft offers much larger portions of their source code through their Shared Source licensing program. If they had stolen code in their software I doubt they'd let the world have a peak.
Re:Been there before by DrEldarion · 2004-07-10 02:38 · Score: 5, Funny

You just stop right there, mister. This is our Microsoft-bashing party and we're not going to have any silly things like "reason" and "logic" get in the way of our unbased accusations!
Re:Been there before by MathFox · 2004-07-10 02:39 · Score: 1

For years there had been idle speculation about how much stolen code (GPL or otherwise) was in Windows. Yet when the portions of Windows 2000 source code were leaked, MS was found to be squeaky clean.
Are there any official reports that confirm that?
How would anyone know that some code was copied from other closed source stuff?
Last but not least: Who would dare to admit in public that he illegally copied the Windows source code?

--
extern warranty;
main()
{
(void)warranty;
}
Re:Been there before by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:58 · Score: 0

Well ... pretty much anyone in China, say, or Russia.
Re:Been there before by RickHunter · 2004-07-10 02:59 · Score: 1

Precisely. The illegally copied W2K source code was never released to the public, and certainly never looked at by anyone with sufficient authority to make pronouncements about how much GPL'd code was illegally incorporated into it.
Re:Been there before by craXORjack · 2004-07-10 03:28 · Score: 1

For years there had been idle speculation about how much stolen code (GPL or otherwise) was in Windows. Yet when the portions of Windows 2000 source code were leaked, MS was found to be squeaky clean. But don't let me stand between you and inevitable tin foil hats.
Actually, Microsoft has been proven in court to have stolen code more than once. My guess is that since it is so difficult to prove such a thing when MS keeps the code hidden (and still hides much of it to this day even though they've had years to camoflage the hot parts) and then so difficult to win when you are fighting multi million dollar lawyers, that the number of times they stole code must be much much greater than the number of times they were proven in court to have stolen code.

--
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Re:Been there before by Marc+Desrochers · 2004-07-10 03:46 · Score: 1

IF you had found bits of stolen code in Windows, would you stick your neck out and admit to having seen the windows code? What kind of trouble do you think it would have caused if, say, Linus had found stolen code?
Re:Been there before by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:14 · Score: 0

Yet when the portions of Windows 2000 source code were leaked, MS was found to be squeaky clean.

Remember were talking about the King of Obfuscation here. Literal comparisons may have come up clean but has anyone really looked hard for GPL violations?
Re:Been there before by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 04:53 · Score: 1

This claim is wildly, wildly, wildly mistaken. Please actually look up the VMS source code theft from DEC by David Cutler, and its role in the release of NT. And keep in mind that Windows 2000 is actually NT 2.0, mislabeled, as opposed to the Windows 3.x and Win9x and WinME, which are a graphical interface living on top of DOS.

The reason you don't see screaming about that anymore in court is not because it wasn't stolen: it's because the case was settled out of court years ago, when DEC really loathed court cases and thought they could continue innovating to be one step ahead of the thieves. (The thieves got better at it, unfortunately.)

That source code theft is fairly apparent to former DEC employees, VMS code authors, who've glanced at the released Windows code. Unfortunately, for various copyright and trade secret reasons, they're quite reluctant to analyze it in depth, and David Cutler hired away his old VMS development team to work at Microsoft. Analyzing it in court would take another 5 years and many millions in court costs before another hand-selected by Microsoft cretinous judge like Judge White in the anti-trust case, and probably amount in only another slap-on-the-wrist in return for them many millions spent in court.

Even the most honest company can go out of business fast standing in front of the chainsaw-laden legal power of Microsoft. It's sad, but it's amazingly difficult to convict a company that big that is so involved in the US economy, especially when the President and the Attorney General are both so pro-business.
Re:Been there before by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 06:00 · Score: 0

There are stolen code. Some was exposed and settled. For example, QuickTime.
Microsoft hired a San Francisco company to help it write Windows Media Player. The said company actually had access to QuickTime for the purpose of helping Apple port it to Windows. Some of QuickTime code ended up in WMP. What people here kept mentioning when they say Microsoft bailed out Apple was actually the settlement of the case. MS knew it would lose the case and Apple knew it would die without MS Office. The settlement required MS to guarantee the development of Office:Mac for 5 years, invest $150M in non-voting shares and both companies to cross-license patents. It wasn't generosity of MS that prompted the investment, which ironically make a bundle of cash when MS sold the shares. The moral of the story? Cheat... it makes you money (via WMP), more money (via Office:Mac), and then some (selling shares at higher price). I wish I'd be punished like that.
Re:Been there before by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 08:20 · Score: 0

Umm...seeing as if its modified so heavily that it cant be recognized then it's no longer copyrighted...get it?

Unless of course you were referring to the algorithms themselves...but that would be software patents, which surely you don't support.
Re:Been there before by danila · 2004-07-10 08:50 · Score: 1

There was little speculation about that. At least at the Slashdot I visit, don't know about yours. However, there are some known facts and among them is the fact that lots of code in MS products was, although not stolen, bought at gunpoint or through deception. MS doesn't want to have anything with GPL code, because they can't control it, but they are happy with using innovations of others by buying some of competing companies and crushing the rest.

What can you say about that, you basher of MS-bashing?

--
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
Re:Been there before by ThisIsFred · 2004-07-10 16:31 · Score: 1

...Win9x and WinME, which are a graphical interface living on top of DOS.

Which version of MS-DOS is this that runs in protected mode? Don't recall running across that particular version.

--
Fred

"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Re:Been there before by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 17:52 · Score: 1

Take a look at the guts of the kernel if you can get source access, read any of the dozens of reference books on the history and the guts of Win9x, *THOUSANDS* of web page references, and the Calder DRDOS lawsuit concerning the way Microsoft claimed that Win9x wouldn't run on anyone else's version of DOS, and later added detection code in Win95 to complain at you if you ran it on top of another DOS. Don't mistake later features of DOS, added for many operational reasons and necessary for Win3.11 and the later Win9x and WinME, for an actual change away from that core kernel. It's mostly a man behind a marketing curtain with a megaphone, saying "pay no attention to that Caldera DRDOS kernel that supports Win9x even better than ours!"
Re:Been there before by ThisIsFred · 2004-07-11 02:10 · Score: 1

I don't dispute that Windows 95/98/ME bootstraps off of DOS, or that Microsoft broke any possibility of compatibility with competitors' version of DOS. What I do dispute is the statment that Win9x is just a graphical shell on top of MS-DOS.

--
Fred

"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Re:Been there before by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-11 06:26 · Score: 1

That is a fair point. But note that they didn't actually break the compatibility, or not very successfully: they simply got the startup tools to print lots of warnings if it detected the os of anything other than *their* version of MS-DOS. I do a lot of work in both the command line level and the GUI levels of a lot of different OS's, and have watched the development of GUI environments for a lot of them. I can accept that Win3.11 added a lot onto DOS, and that Win9x is a mature version of Win3.11, but don't see why you see Win9x as fundamentally distinct from the DOS underpinnings. It's like saying that X windows is the OS on a UNIX machine: most of the kernel limitations and the hardware handling is still there, even if you've added new layers of complexity for video and mouse handling.
Re:Been there before by Bert64 · 2004-07-11 19:27 · Score: 1

But neither of these are *complete*...
So what about the bits they miss out?

--
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!

Never used altavista... by KrisCowboy · 2004-07-10 02:27 · Score: 1

...but search results at http://search.msn.com look similar to the results given by google. When I searched for "linux vs microsoft" a month back, it showed 0 results...pretty weak, huh? Well, I should've tried "linux vs windows". When I tried it a couple of minutes ago, it's working damn fine. Looks like M$ is in a hurry to start competing with google and altavista.

Re:Never used altavista... by Echnin · 2004-07-10 02:34 · Score: 2, Funny

Never used Altavista? I thought [i]I[/i] was young. Noob. :p

--
Lalala
Re:Never used altavista... by Echnin · 2004-07-10 02:36 · Score: 1

And I'm the noob who used UBBCode on Slashdot. Heh.

--
Lalala
Re:Never used altavista... by KrisCowboy · 2004-07-11 00:34 · Score: 1

And I'm the noob who used UBBCode on Slashdot
Never did that either

After RTFA by deadlinegrunt · 2004-07-10 02:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

According to the FBI affidavit, Chavet told investigators that he worked on the AltaVista source code while at the company and logged into the AltaVista system after leaving because he "was 'curious' about the evolution of the source code after his departure."

Curiosity was framed damnit! Curiosity is always framed. It's ignorance that did it.

--
BSD is designed. Linux is grown. C++ libs

The truth exposed ... by polyp2000 · 2004-07-10 02:29 · Score: 2, Funny

What ... Microsoft stealing ideas from other people ? Never .. Next thing we know IE will come with tabbed browsing ...

--
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp

Re:The truth exposed ... by rd4tech · 2004-07-10 02:47 · Score: 1

Now that's a real innovation, I've been using IE for years (yeah sure) and I haven't seen tabbed browsing :) When I go surf the IE tabs will help me?
Re:The truth exposed ... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:40 · Score: 0

Dimwit. The guy stole the code before he worked at Microsoft.
Re:The truth exposed ... by Technonotice_Dom · 2004-07-10 04:57 · Score: 1

Yeah, but when IE gets tabs it won't be that really shitty implementation that Mozilla, Opera or Firefox have.

For example, both of those products fully support tearing a tab to make it a free-floating window, which means you can decide whenever you want to move a browser window to another monitor. Try that in Firefox.

Try that in Opera. I just did. Right clicked the tab, clicked "Detach" then dragged the window to my other monitor.

I personally don't like Firefox + Mozilla much but Opera rocks.
Re:The truth exposed ... by tit0.c · 2004-07-10 05:49 · Score: 2, Informative

Mozilla wasnt the first browser to use tabs...I cant say for sure but I think it was opera.And their implementation is still superior to mozilla`s.
Re:The truth exposed ... by Digital11 · 2004-07-10 06:26 · Score: 1

Hmm... now that you mention it...

=)

--
I am a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
Re:The truth exposed ... by mrchaotica · 2004-07-10 10:04 · Score: 1

IE coming out with tabbed browsing isn't stealing. IMHO, there's no problem with it at all, as long as they don't use Mozilla's (or Opera's, or anybody else's) code to do so.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:The truth exposed ... by Daneurysm · 2004-07-10 11:40 · Score: 1

amen to that...I love Opera, even though it seems to get shit on by the Mozilla and Firebird crowd.

3.4meg download, loads up instantly, and is still by far the fastest rendering engine i've seen. all of this talk about IE's rendering speed being a reason why people stick to IE is total horse shit.
Re:The truth exposed ... by Demolition · 2004-07-14 10:45 · Score: 1

Actually, it might have been NetCaptor. They've had a tabbed browsing implementation since 1998.

D.

And then... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:30 · Score: 0

And then, he stole the source for HL2! Let's nail this bastard to the wall!

Why steal? by m00nun1t · 2004-07-10 02:31 · Score: 4, Informative

Why steal - Microsoft hired one of the key guys behind Altavista, Daniel Feussner. He worked on microsoft.com search.

Unfortunately for all, he was fired (and later died) after stealing & reselling large amounts of company software. Some details at http://www.compaqsucks.com/wwwboard/messages/545.h tml. But he'd been with MS for several years at that point.

--
Read reviews of shopping cart software

Re:Why steal? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 03:17 · Score: 0

Feussner drank antifreeze. It causes an extremely painful death when it precipitates as crystals in your liver. Bad bad bad.
Re:Why steal? by dafoomie · 2004-07-10 03:24 · Score: 3, Interesting

Whats kind of freaky is that guy's website still exists... Its as if its frozen in time. http://www.subterrane.com/~dfeussner/
Re:Why steal? by mrchaotica · 2004-07-10 10:08 · Score: 1

What's really freaky is that it still exists despite being run out of his basement -- I'd understand if it were on tripod or something (I have a site still there from middle school), but from his basement?!

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Why steal? by michaelhood · 2004-07-10 12:18 · Score: 1

So is that photo on the front page there to explain the cause of his death?
Re:Why steal? by ZapoAM · 2004-07-10 15:27 · Score: 1

Doubt it...he killed himself while out on bail by drinking antifreeze.
Re:Why steal? by Reziac · 2004-07-10 19:34 · Score: 1

I had exactly the same thought... this is kinda like those legendary Netware 2.0 servers people occasionally find walled up in former closets. I kept expecting the site to say "I see dead people" :)

I also notice that the catcam is stopped as of 2002, and that "The Girl" link seems unfinished. Which, of course, is only fitting if he was a proper geek (as the cellar-dwelling server left to its own devices seems to imply ;)

--
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Re:Why steal? by redenopolis · 2004-07-11 02:22 · Score: 1

it's on (presumably) a friend's server, who is actively blogging on the main page. probably was never in his basement. pathalogical liars lie about even the smallest things to make themselves look better. watch out for them; and if you find one, run away, run away!

Of course, it makes sense by theefer · 2004-07-10 02:32 · Score: 1

This explains why the MSN search engine sucks so much and is so slow. Proofs are really too obvious this time, sorry.

--
theefer

Better to be pre-emptive by orionware · 2004-07-10 02:33 · Score: 3, Interesting

I always make sure that I have copies of the source code of applications I have worked on so in case something happens with my employer I WON'T have to use nefarious means to retrieve what is mine.

I know many might say that employers own the intellectual property that you generate while working for them, but I don't agree. If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine. If I come up with a solution for a problem am I supposted to forget the solution and never use it again if I go elsewhere?

Let them sue me. Hard to get water from a stone.

--

Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...

Re:Better to be pre-emptive by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:38 · Score: 0

Unfortuanatly the law trumps you on this one. You may think that the software you write should be yours, but by the law it's not. So taking it with you is a crime. If you want to own the software you write, either write it on your own time or don't work for a company at all. Those are your choices.

What if this article had been about how an Alta Vista employee left the company, taking their code with him, and then brought it to his new employer, claiming that "It's my code, and I can do what I want with it"? The comments here would still be the same. The guy is screwing Alta Vista, whether he takes the code with him when he leaves (as you said you would) or whether he breaks in to get it.
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by mikael · 2004-07-10 02:44 · Score: 1

If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine.

That's why you should always design any complex algorithm in pseudocode first. The company owns the actual implementation/documentation/source code. You keep the algorithm in your head. That way every time you reuse that algorithm, it's a clean room implementation.

--
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by Marthisdil · 2004-07-10 02:45 · Score: 0

I know many might say that employers own the intellectual property that you generate while working for them, but I don't agree. If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine. If I come up with a solution for a problem am I supposted to forget the solution and never use it again if I go elsewhere? Let them sue me. Hard to get water from a stone.

Depending on the terms of whatever you may have signed when you became an employee. But obviously you seem too high and mighty to believe that. As far as getting water from a stone - it's not really that hard - if it were to ever happen, you'd just be living in a crappy trailer on 8 Mile, while pulling in 50k and never seeing much of it.
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:55 · Score: 0

Let them sue me. Hard to get water from a stone.
Which is why they'll sue your new employer instead.

Doesn't seem to be happening in this case (yet), presumably AV is more interested in pushing the criminal probe than pushing civil action against MS.
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by orionware · 2004-07-10 03:02 · Score: 1

The law says nothing about IP. It all depends on what you were stupid enough to agree to if you have to sign an employment agreement.

Even then, those agreements can be difficult to enforce, even if you were stupid enough to sign away your rights to a jury trial which many of those agreements ask you do to.

All I have to say to them is "prove it". I do not agree that you should steal source code from a company you did not write, but I have a hard time letting that have everythin that's inside MY head.

--

Karma means nothing to me, so suck it...
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by Apreche · 2004-07-10 03:07 · Score: 1

While I agree this may be closer to the way things "should be" it isn't the way things are. On the one hand I don't think IP should really exist.

But then I think contracts SHOULD exist. Without contracts and the law backing them up you couldn't do anything. For an economy to function it is absolutely necessary for their to be a way to exchange goods and services while legally binding the other parties to hold up their end of the bargain. If you go to work somewhere and you sign a contract that says the company owns the code you right, tough shit. You know what you were getting into, you agreed to it. Don't go against that, its dishonest just like the big corps we all hate.

So while I disagree with the principle of owning ideas and thoughts I agree with contracts. And if you say that the code you write will be company owned, then its going to be company owned, fuck you. You have nobody to blame but yourself.

--
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by Tofurkey · 2004-07-10 05:03 · Score: 1

Sometimes it's the lesser of two evils. I had the choice to sign a crappy contract/NDA or remain unemployed. I took the contract to lawyer, who agreed that it was terrible, and unenforceable.

I'm doubt many companies care if an agreement is enforcable, and use it as a club instead -- if they think you're not playing the game right, they can try for an injunction to prevent you from working pending the outcome of the case. You will probably win, but lose your shirt in the process.

Me, I smiled my stupid grin and signed.

--
writeSig(!funny);
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 13:34 · Score: 0

Just so you know, just because you don't agree with a law doesn't mean anything at the end of the day.

Try telling something like that to a judge, "I'm sorry your honor, I stole that car because I don't agree with our nation's current property laws".
Re:Better to be pre-emptive by zuesse · 2004-07-11 06:43 · Score: 1

If I come up with a solution for a problem am I supposted to forget the solution and never use it again if I go elsewhere?

The jury will disregard the last statement!

--

What great fortune for rulers that men do not think.

Typo by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:33 · Score: 5, Funny

The headline misspelled "embraced and extended"

Sincerely,
WH Gates

MSN's new search will be HUGE... by jerkface · 2004-07-10 02:34 · Score: 5, Interesting

and this Altavista thing probably has nothing to do with it. As others have pointed out, Altavista doesn't have anything to offer anyway.

A certain site I help run has shown what many other people are seeing: MSN's search robot is absolutely going crazy lately. It purposely retrieves files of all kinds - it's done about 4.5GB of traffic on my site because it's downloading large videos! What's a search engine going to do with all these videos?

Besides that, it visits the forums as often as many of the regulars do. It's FAR more aggressive than googlebot.

It's rather obvious that MSN's new search engine is going to be both more complete and more up-to-date than anything else that's out there. I love google right now, but I wonder how they're going to stand up to MS.

--

--
Ikaruga scoreboard (supports netranking)

Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:41 · Score: 0

So, flood youre sites with lots of large vid files :D Thatll eat up theyre cache :D

What about self referring links :D
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by lurking · 2004-07-10 02:43 · Score: 2, Interesting

Oh great! So you are gonna use up all your allotted bandwidth because of Micro$ofts search engine? Yeah that's what I really want!
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by dema · 2004-07-10 02:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

There's a lot more to getting accurate, relevant search results than gathering cache. The question is, how will MS stand up to Google, not the other way around.
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by novakreo · 2004-07-10 02:54 · Score: 1

A certain site I help run has shown what many other people are seeing: MSN's search robot is absolutely going crazy lately. It purposely retrieves files of all kinds - it's done about 4.5GB of traffic on my site because it's downloading large videos! What's a search engine going to do with all these videos?

If it bothers you so, why don't you use /robots.txt to keep it out? (and if the MSN robot ignores this, there's a story for /. in itself)

--
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by drtomaso · 2004-07-10 02:58 · Score: 3, Funny

I didnt notice it taking alot of bandwidth from my site, probably because we dont have alot of videos for it to download.

I did notice the forum activity though. It comes in just as often as the regulars. It wasnt a problem til it got involved in an anti-MS flame-war though. Jeez- talk about malware- some of the things it said were just plain mean.
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by jerkface · 2004-07-10 02:58 · Score: 1

root@hostname:/var/www/html# mknod REALLYIMPORTANTVIDEO.avi c 1 9

--

--
Ikaruga scoreboard (supports netranking)
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Alan+Hicks · 2004-07-10 03:00 · Score: 4, Informative

It's rather obvious that MSN's new search engine is going to be both more complete and more up-to-date than anything else that's out there. I love google right now, but I wonder how they're going to stand up to MS.

Repeat after me. A spider is not a search engine. A search engine is not a spider.

You seem to be all up in alarm because Microsoft might come out and beat up google. I wouldn't worry about it myself. To begin with, all those videos are going to be mostly useless unless they do a "video search" similar to google's "image search". What good that would be I don't know. You seem to have forgotten that even though MS may have more content to search than google, they still have to sift through all that stuff. They still have to grep it, grok it, cull it, and then format the results in a high-availability high-performance cluster of database servers in order to compete with google. Even for MS that's a herculean task.

--
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by RickHunter · 2004-07-10 03:04 · Score: 1

Also, the reason Google's search tech is so good is because they employ an absolutely insane number of talented PhDs. These people have done loads of research on graph theory, information theory, and other related fields and how they link back to searching, and all that has been incorporated into Google's engine.

MS isn't going to squish them unless they've managed to match them brain-wise, and from what I've heard, that just isn't happening. Add to this the fact that Google started small DB-wise and grew incrimentally, while MS seems to be trying to suck down the entire web all at once...
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by myspys · 2004-07-10 03:13 · Score: 2, Insightful

isn't it obvious that the reason they need to crawl the web MORE aggressive than googlebot is because msn doesn't have as much of the web as googlebot have?

i think it will slow done once it's reached X number of pages
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by gr8fulnded · 2004-07-10 03:30 · Score: 1

All the mined data in the world won't make damn bit of difference if it can't retrieve it accurately and timely.
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2004-07-10 04:21 · Score: 1

If it bothers you so, why don't you use /robots.txt to keep it out?

Better yet, block the crawler completely.

--
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by mdamaged · 2004-07-10 05:55 · Score: 1

Seems to me a good way to gather evidence of distributing RIAA, MPAA etc. protected intellectual property. Before you imagine me with a tinfoil hat, don't put it past M$, think WMPs unique identification registry entry, and it calling home for DVD TOCs for DVDs which allready have TOCs.

Or maybe it's just coincedence....

--
Someone asked me the difference between ignorance and apathy, I told them I don't know and I don't care.
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Moofie · 2004-07-10 06:46 · Score: 1

Yeah, because it's a good idea to block traffic from your site because of your ideological biases. I bet your boss will totally understand that.

I hate Microsoft as much as anybody, but that's cutting off your nose to spite your face...

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by shish · 2004-07-10 07:25 · Score: 2, Informative

What's a search engine going to do with all these videos?
How about something crazy, like, say, searching videos?

--
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by tiny69 · 2004-07-10 08:00 · Score: 2, Informative

The FAQ for the MSNBot. Of particluar interest:
How do I prevent MSNBot from crawling some or all of my website?
The robots.txt file is used to prevent web crawlers from accessing a web site. The format of the robots.txt file is specified in The Robot Exclusion Standard. MSNBot analyzes all instances where the User-Agent is specified as either "msnbot" or "*". Based on this, MSNBot crawls only the web pages that allow it to do so.

--
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by kmmatthews · 2004-07-10 09:30 · Score: 2, Interesting

Besides that, it visits the forums as often as many of the regulars do. It's FAR more aggressive than googlebot.
And that would be why it got itself banned from my hosts. I had a similar situation - large images. About 5 gb worth before I noticed. Not a big deal, and I wouldn't mind if a PERSON downloaded all my images, but.. There's only 1 freaking gb of images there. FIVE TIMES?!?!
*swears off into the distance*
[OTOH... googlebot has sometimes eaten me alive.. but at least it only eats me once, unlike this one, which eats me, shits me out, eats the shitted-out-me again, ... ad infinium].

--
feh. stuff.
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 14:28 · Score: 0

See!! they *did* steal Altavista's search engine
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Fulcrum+of+Evil · 2004-07-11 03:12 · Score: 1

Yeah, because it's a good idea to block traffic from your site because of your ideological biases. I bet your boss will totally understand that.

You assume too much. I would block MS' spider because they're costing me money by hammering on movie files. The fact that their search engine sucks is secondary and their status as MS is irrelevant.

--
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Re:MSN's new search will be HUGE... by Pieroxy · 2004-07-12 10:32 · Score: 1

I so much agree... I have this one small page that MSN bot has been crawling 5000 times since last month. This is just plain crazy.

--
Write boring code, not shiny code!

some more info by dncsky1530 · 2004-07-10 02:36 · Score: 3, Informative

Reuters
katu

Already convicted by csirac · 2004-07-10 02:38 · Score: 4, Interesting

Microsoft is already appealing a $0.5 million fine for pircay of other people's code in France.

To cut a long story short, IIRC, MS bought a company X. Company X had a license to USE some code from Company Z. MS effectively began to assume they owned it, so Company Z had to court to stop MS pirating their software.

hacking != cracking by the_y_man84 · 2004-07-10 02:40 · Score: 0

i thought cracking was the art of breaking into systems/porgrams where as hacking was the art of the just hacking out code.....anybody care to enlighten me?

Re:hacking != cracking by BCW2 · 2004-07-10 02:45 · Score: 0

You are correct. As usual the moronic media missuses terms and makes one sound correct even when the meanings are wrong. Mass media has been corrupting language for 40 years and will never learn.

--
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Re:hacking != cracking by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 05:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

I'm sorry, but when 90% of the population uses a word a certain way, that's what it means, even if the technical among us recognize vital distinctions among the different words.

Calling them morons doesn't help. Explaining the difference to newbies might help.
Re:hacking != cracking by BCW2 · 2004-07-10 10:09 · Score: 1

The lazy fools in the media are the reason the public is miss-informed. If those talking heads ever actually did anything like reasearching their own articles, wait, that would make them journalists. Never mind. Mindless prima-donnas decide word usage.

--
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Re:hacking != cracking by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 18:02 · Score: 1

Right, here we have Claims about media laziness and mindlessness from someone who can't spell "misinformed" or "researched" or "primadonna" in a 100 word essay. Try mastering spelling before you complain about someone else's grammar: your lack of writing skill for the English language discredits any claim you might make about correct usage. What do you do for a hobby to write so badly and make you think you have a right to criticize someone for using common dictionary meanings for words? Write Kirk/Spock "slash" fiction, with yourself sandwiched in the middle of every story? Or fill out your income taxes in Klingon?
Re:hacking != cracking by BCW2 · 2004-07-11 11:55 · Score: 1

The American school system at work. I aint an English major, fuck off and die.

--
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
Re:hacking != cracking by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-12 00:22 · Score: 1

Ahh, yes, you are proof of the dregs of the American school system at work. Don't learn your own language: don't bother to proofread, clearly your self-esteem has been developed by school to the point where such tawdry factors are unnecessary in the glare of the brilliance of your critical observations of *someone else's* writing.

No wonder your job has been outsourced: at least the overseas helpdesks bothered to learn the language ('Ð('re writing and speaking in.

Similarity by savagedome · 2004-07-10 02:40 · Score: 2, Insightful

Orkut code was claimed to be stolen recently.

Its completely the employees fault. I am no big Microsoft supporter but nothing they can do about this if the guy chose to do it by himself.

--

Free XBox, PS2

Re:Similarity by thebatlab · 2004-07-10 03:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

No, it's not just the employees fault. I'm sure Microsoft knew full well what he worked on before and what he might do with that knowledge. And as far as what he did, he did not "hack" into the servers. He used an old account to get in. The company has to be accountable too. Just like google
Re:Similarity by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 05:03 · Score: 1

I'll grant Microsoft this small credit: they may not have known or realized that this employee had or would steal code from his old workplace. It would be interesting to get the guy's testimony, and compare it to his manager's and co-worker's, without allowing them to speak together and work up a story. But it helps a lot if your public and repeated corporate attitude is "write your own code, give credit and copyright notices when needed". If you don't make that kind of policy clear, and enforce it, you foster an environment where this can happen a lot. And it's clear that Microsoft does not foster this attitude, from their lengthy and extensive history of such theft, usually settled out of court in closed settlements for lots of reasons. It's also clear that they're happy to make outrageous copyright and ownership claims if it fosters their business case: take a look at Microsoft's corporate sponsorship of SCO and its lawsuits against Linux development companies like IBM to show how they use their corporate legal power to frighten and harass competitors. SCO's alleged financial status figures show that the money keeping them afloat in the midst of all the huge legal bills is the money from Microsoft partnerships. And unfortunately for Mr. Chavet, using an old account most certainly counts as "hacking". He had NDA's and various commercial relationships with his old company: he and they knew he was no longer authorized to poke around: he used an old or someone else's account.

Why would Microsoft try to steal it? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:43 · Score: 0

It's not like Altavista was Google, I'm sure if they threw enough money their way they'd be happy to share any code they wanted. The bad publicity of knowingly using stolen code would be far more expensive than purchasing it outright.

Well, okay, so Microsoft started out by ripping off CP/M, then the Mac interface (parts of which were already swiped from Xerox), then tried to copy Stacker, Quicken, et al, but surely they are a nicer company now.

Yarr... we have a pirate... by MacBorg · 2004-07-10 02:44 · Score: 1

Now, what did the english do to pirates? Hung 'em. What should we do? Make him be Gates' lapdog... oogh that's a fate worse than death.

Will AV pull a Darl McBride? by Eudial · 2004-07-10 02:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

The question is: Will AV pull a Darl McBride, and claim that MSN search was based on AV, and should cease and desist immediately, and start suing everyone who uses MSN search for IP infringements?

Naturally they will in that case refuse to show the sources of AV, making it impossible for Microsoft to prove the opposite.

--
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!

Source code "theft" by EMN13 · 2004-07-10 02:46 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't believe that source code theft is really such a problems for such companies - I really really doubt microsoft would use much of altavista's code even if they legally could! (It's so unbelievably much work to figure out someone elses mature code....)

However, employee education leakage is far more important. The raison d'etre for some of those architectural choices, or experiences with certain emergent pattern in large scale systems, and similarly complex issues are very, very valuable.

So really - feel sorry for microsoft... this just gives them bad PR, potentially opens them up for lawsuits (however unfounded), and generally doesn't do them any good..

I wonder where the claim of 5000 dollars damage comes from? The article says he claims he was curious about the progression of the product (which honestly, however illegal, I sympathize with - you put so much of yourself in these systems and then all of a sudden you're not allowed to know anything about them... arg!), so maybe it's all just much ado about nothing.

Re:Source code "theft" by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 03:07 · Score: 0

That five grand is just a number assigned to put the "crime" above the FBI's radar so that they'll even look at it. It's common for companies to claim ridiculous damages in cases like this so that they can exceed statutory minimums for specific types of crimes to get the Feds interested.
Re:Source code "theft" by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-11 06:40 · Score: 1

Don't believe that source code theft is a small problem. As others have described here, some folks think it's OK to keep personal copies of everything they ever worked on, so they can use chunks of it later on, and never actually bother to notify their new employers that they do so.

This is why I vastly prefer to write my code under GPL, and grab new tools that are clearly open source: it's available for other people, and it's available for *me* to work with later, so I don't have to just throw away months of my work when I encounter a similar problem in a new place.

Altavista source code by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:47 · Score: 5, Funny

#!/bin/sh # (c)1988 Altavi^H^H^H^H^H^HMicrosoftCorp 2004 sleep 5 find /cache_last_updated_1994 -exec grep -i -l "$*" {} \;

Re:Altavista source code by Justin205 · 2004-07-10 20:37 · Score: 1

sleep 5
That should be...
sleep 60

--
"Your effort to remain what you are is what limits you."

Doesn't sound credible by jsebrech · 2004-07-10 02:57 · Score: 1

If microsoft really stole code, you'd think they'd steal the really good stuff. Past experience with microsoft products would indicate otherwise.

what really happened by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 02:57 · Score: 5, Informative

Pardon my anonymity, but I did used to work with the guy. The speculation in the comments here is pretty disguisting, as is the implication that he would give/use said source code to Microsoft.

To be sure, he's a smart guy, and doesn't need to. He might have screwed up by doing what he did, but being code-smart doesn't make you common sense-smart.

The 'hack' was to demonstrate the insecurity of certain machines at AltaVista. The lost data was recovered in a couple days. He'd pointed out the insecurity of these machines a number of times and nothing was done about it until after he accessed the machine.

The alleged stolen source code was a backup of the tree on a FireWire drive he created when the source repo was being moved.

While I'm not condoning what he did, he shouldn't be crucified for it. The punishment in the US regarding [cr|h]acking does not fit the crime. In this case, the "victim" is a huge corporation (Yahoo) who was damaged far below the necssary $100k necessary for FBI involvement and stands little to benefit from this predatory proscecution of its former employee other than the PR stunt that is connecting him to Microsoft and the new MSN search.

I'm gonna be fucking sick.

Re:what really happened by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 03:17 · Score: 2, Interesting

If the company in question here (MS) didn't have a track record of stealing ideas and, in some cases, code outright, then perhaps your comments might seem pretty level headed. As it is, you need to consider all this in context. MS steals ideas, intellectual property and code. We all know it. It's been proven in court more than once. Ask Sun or Apple about that. They've been sued successfully before on this issue many times and accused of it many more. The pattern exists whether it "digusts" you or not.
I'm gonna be fucking sick.
Maybe now you know how some folks feel when MS steps in and steals their property or hard work.
Re:what really happened by alienw · 2004-07-10 04:00 · Score: 1

far below the necssary $100k necessary for FBI involvement

Actually, the trigger is only $5,000. I agree with what you said, though.
Re:what really happened by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 05:16 · Score: 1

Unless you've gotten a chance to examine both sets of code, you've really gotten no chance to determine just how much he transplanted into MSN's search engine, do you? The best way to actually know it's been used or not is to be the author of course. You wouldn't be the author of both sets of code, would you? Someone stupid enough to break into his old workplace machines and steal code wouldn't be stupid enough to pop up on /. and pretend innocence, would he? Either way, as you say, being smart, or even pleasant, doesn't make you common-sense smart. And it most certainly doesn't make you honest or innocent. (It also doesn't teach you how to punctuate the phrase "common-sense smart". The article says Mr. Chavet's passport has been seized: maybe it's time for you to brush up on your English?) This case can, in theory, force Microsoft to expose the potentially stolen code to either Altavista or at least to the judge and some legal/computer experts to see if it is in fact stolen. *THAT* would demonstrate whether the code is in fact stolen. In fact, I'd recommend using Eric Raymond's "shred" utility to compare the code bases. But no one should take an unverifiable, anonymous, "he's too smart to do that kind of theft" claim about someone already shown to be a thief and a cracker. How anyone can pretend that such behavior is "harmless" or "innocent" is beyond me.
Re:what really happened by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 06:01 · Score: 0

Go back and read the article. The guy didn't even work at MS when the crime occurred. MS was not involved.
Re:what really happened by Tim+Browse · 2004-07-10 08:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

The 'hack' was to demonstrate the insecurity of certain machines at AltaVista. The lost data was recovered in a couple days. He'd pointed out the insecurity of these machines a number of times and nothing was done about it until after he accessed the machine.

You're right that he's not got much common sense...
Federal authorities allege that Laurent Chavet, a former AltaVista employee, illegally accessed the California company's computer system in March 2002 and June 2002, after he left AltaVista

Feel free to bitch about your employer's poor security. If you're a permanent employee, and confident of your position, hack in to show it can be done and report your findings to the powers that be. (I'd still recommend telling your boss you're going to try, though.)
But for the love of God, don't leave a company, then hack in to their systems just to show them that it can be done. You've left - your responsibility to their security has ended, and if you do it then, people will merely suspect your motives.
I wouldn't dream of hacking into an ex-employer's systems, no matter how benign or helpful I thought I was being, unless I had their express permission to try.
Maybe it's just me. And anyone else with some common sense.

What do Alta Vista do? by Harry8 · 2004-07-10 02:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

I've heard much whining from lawyers (often repeated by journalists) about the process of open source projects accepting code without doing exhaustive searches to ensure that said code does not belong to someone else.
This despite the fact that opensource codee can be seen by all, including those who own the copyrights, and project leaders can be notified, "These lines of code in these files are ours. Remove them please."

Alta Vista may have had their code stolen by a Microsoft Project.

How can Alta Vista possibly know?

If it were an open source project, it would be obvious, Alta Vista developers could verify by inspection.
Are microsoft going to allow Alta Vista, their commercial competition, to see their code?

Open Source code is the least likely to have infringed copyright, becuase the copyright owner can see it, at any time, under zero uncumberance to their daily work.
If proprietary software contains copyright infringing code, it takes rather obstruce mechanisms. Eg Andrew Tridgell noticing a proprietary company's accidental release note "Fixes bug xxxx in samba" or now this story.

Free Software code is less likely to be stolen than any other code you didn't write yourself.
Why don't journalists get that when it is obvious?

Re:What do Alta Vista do? by black+mariah · 2004-07-10 04:55 · Score: 1

Because it's NOT obvious. It's no more or less obvious than with proprietay code. Believe it or not, companies have better things to do than download every fucking thing on Sourceforget, trolling for their code.

--
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Re:What do Alta Vista do? by Harry8 · 2004-07-11 02:10 · Score: 1
I'm sorry I thought it was obvious, I forget not all of us actually write code.
- Someone alleges infringing code in open-source project XXX. Maybe they release 10 new features, all of which are in copyright software.
- Developers of the copyright code, download & inspect code of project XXX, maybe using a few shell scripts.
- Infringing code is found or not pretty quickly.
What do Alta Vista do about the alleged infringement by Microsoft?
If my code is device drivers I probably wouldn't bother with downloading and inspecting all the PHP, perl, & python photograph albums on sourceforge.

The point remains if anyone suggests that an open source project contains code that infringes my copyright, I can check it pretty quickly. If you write software, it really is obvious, I promise. Moreover it's also very cheap.
If it's proprietary, closed source software that might be infringing my copyright, my position is contrasing . What can I do? Start hiring lawyers on what might be baseless speculation, and still I probably need bug for bug compatibility to get anywhere.

Ah, but did you know that? I notice 3 of your recent comments modded as troll, 2 as flamebait and you like to say fuck out loud.
Nice to see that Closed-Source advocates can be every bit as obnoxious as the most fervent devotees of Mr Stallman. ;)

All the best.

Do unto others... by segfault_0 · 2004-07-10 02:58 · Score: 5, Interesting

Now if Linux really had some code in it that was unknowingly copied in by someone, is this how you would want it and its creators treated, because of the acts of one morally deprived individual?? No, most would say it wasnt their fault.

Id have to side with Microsoft on this one, They obviously knew he had Altavista knowldege but i wouldnt hold their feet to the fire because i dont think they knew the extent of what this mans "experience" was.

Microsoft is in a real tough spot with keeping their secrets secret while ensuring that Altavista is treated fairly. People who steal software source code suck.

--

I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)

Re:Do unto others... by Moofie · 2004-07-10 06:49 · Score: 1

I think it's about time Microsoft got hoist by their own petard. They've made a business of stealing source code for 20 years, so I call this fair play.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Re:Do unto others... by segfault_0 · 2004-07-10 13:31 · Score: 1

Then lets hang them for something they actually stole, not something some moron stole without their knowledge.

--

I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
Re:Do unto others... by Moofie · 2004-07-10 13:37 · Score: 1

Let's do both.

--
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!

Quit picking on Microsoft..... by Roskolnikov · 2004-07-10 03:00 · Score: 2, Informative

I am sure this guy didn't list 'hacked altavista' on his
resume, or wait, maybe he did.....

Its ok though, if he was really top notch it would have been google.

--
Unix, an obscure operating system developed by bored researchers in an attempt to get a better game playing experience.

/. readers wets pants, reaches for new Depends... by Saeed+al-Sahaf · 2004-07-10 03:00 · Score: 4, Informative

Stealing is wrong, but AltaVista kinda sucks.

Kinda what I thought, as in "so what" and "perhaps THAT'S why the new MSN test search is SO DAMN SLOW".

And if you read the story (RTFA?), you also learn that this guy was a lead developer of the codebase he hacked into, so it's probible he already knew enough to splice it into The New MSN, if he's like 99.9% of all techies, he already has copies of some of the code burned to CD from when he worked there.

This is really not a Microsoft issue, although Slashdotters will wet their pants over this, blind to the fact this took place YEARS before this guy came to M$, and his "excuse" is kind of understandable: He wanted to see how "his" baby had evolved since he left AV. Maybe, maybe not. But still not the "Micro$oft" smoking gun....

--
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck

Be Honest by tylersoze · 2004-07-10 03:15 · Score: 3, Insightful

Now be honest, how many software developers here have copies of source code from every company they've ever worked for? I sure do. I've never used any non-trivial portion of it (especially since each software job I've had has been in a radically different field) nor would I, mainly because I'd probably want to completely rewrite it anyway :), but I just hate the idea of "losing" something I worked so hard on, even if it justs sits on some dusty CD somewhere and isn't really "mine". They're essentially digital "trophies" I suppose. :)

On the other hand, if I someday go to work for a direct competitor of a company I used to work for, I'd sure as hell make sure I had deleted most of the code I had from the previous company. I definitely wouldn't keep the entire project tree at the very least.

Re:Be Honest by saddino · 2004-07-10 03:21 · Score: 1

Now be honest, how many software developers here have copies of source code from every company they've ever worked for?

And how many software developers here have hacked into their previous employer's system to get a copy of that source code?

Archiving source code from previous jobs is one thing, breaking in to grab it after being fired is, well, clearly illegal.
Re:Be Honest by tylersoze · 2004-07-10 03:24 · Score: 1

I wasn't condoning his particular act, just commenting on how widespread the practice of actually keeping source code from a company you worked for is.
Re:Be Honest by Antique+Geekmeister · 2004-07-10 05:27 · Score: 1

I don't keep such copies, except where the code was open source and published on an externally accessible FTP or HTTP site with the awareness of management. *Ever*. It's really fiscally and legally dangerous to do so. Mind you, I've been contacted on the phone and asked to find it a year later, and told the company which dumptapes to use to recover the files. Friend, take those CD's and do the microwave treatment on them. Make those trophies into flowerpots, because if you ever use extensive code from such proprietary systems you can be held criminally liable. Or give them back to the companies you took them from, because you are risking your freedom and your professional reputation by keeping those.

NDA by internic · 2004-07-10 03:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

I don't work in software, so let me throw out this question. Don't they make you sign an NDA when you work on something like a big search company's search technology? I know they do this in some other tech businesses, making it really hard for you to work for a competitor on the same sort of product without violating your agreement. The reason I ask is that I'm curious how they could hire him for MSN search in the first place.

As far as the stolen code goes, since it happened before he was hired by MS, you can't really blame them. I was also thinking, if he worked on it himself anyway, couldn't he probably replicate most of the functionality even without the actual code in front of him? Then again, the article says, "Chavet told investigators that he worked on the AltaVista source code while at the company and logged into the AltaVista system after leaving because he 'was curious about the evolution of the source code after his departure.'" so maybe he was just trying to steal the most up to date ideas possible. :-)

--
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy

Re:NDA by tylersoze · 2004-07-10 03:22 · Score: 1

Yeah, as a term of my previous contract I had to sign an agreement not to work for a competitor for a year after leaving the company. Although since I'm in Texas, which is a right to work state, it may not have actually stood up in court.

Shame on AltaVista Admins & HR Department by HighOrbit · 2004-07-10 03:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

he worked on the AltaVista source code while at the company and logged into the AltaVista system after leaving

I doubt he "hacked" or cracked his way in. It sounds like the logged on with his old account, in which case *shame shame shame* on the lazy AltaVista admins for not deleting old accounts of ex-employees.

Shame on the AltaVista legal and personnel departments for not making their employees sign non-compete clauses to prevent employees from working on the exact same type of technology for competitors.

Re:Shame on AltaVista Admins & HR Department by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:25 · Score: 0

Shame on the AltaVista legal and personnel departments for not making their employees sign non-compete clauses to prevent employees from working on the exact same type of technology for competitors.

Yeah, because we all know only the nice companies force their employees to sign those agreements. IMHO, those agreements should be illegal.
Re:Shame on AltaVista Admins & HR Department by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:44 · Score: 0

Shame on the AltaVista legal and personnel departments for not making their employees sign non-compete clauses to prevent employees from working on the exact same type of technology for competitors.
These are bullshit anyway. They're worth less than the paper they are written on.
Re:Shame on AltaVista Admins & HR Department by shrauner · 2004-07-10 09:44 · Score: 1

Non-compete clauses are non-enforceable here in California where Alta Vista was based, so what would be the point?

If you read the FBI affidavit, he stole a co-worker's password and logged in using that account, not his own.

that's easy by Trailer+Trash · 2004-07-10 03:28 · Score: 3, Funny

How much code was being written into MSN Search?

Obviously not enough...

--
Do you have ESP?

"Stolen" Idea? by goldspider · 2004-07-10 03:30 · Score: 1

How do you steal an idea? Did this person go to AltaVista HQ in the middle of the night in a ninja suit, rappel down from the rooftop, and pilfer this particular idea from the CEO's safe?

It's information, and it wants to be FREEEEE!! This guy didn't steal anything. He liberated this information, and should be celebrated as the freedom fighter he is!

--
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy

Its not yours, legally or morally by nurb432 · 2004-07-10 03:34 · Score: 1

They paid you for your work, morally they own it, not you. Its really no different then if they bought something from you.. You got paid, they got 'stuff'.

And you signed the agreements to back morality up in court...

Of course you cant forget the basis of your solution and the knowledge you gained, but the actual solution doesn't belong to you.

That is a cost of working for someone else.

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

Re:Its not yours, legally or morally by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:45 · Score: 0

The difficulty comes up with agreements that say 'anything' you do is owned by the company. Where I work now they mean 'anything' - on hours or off. I asked if they wanted to own any IE viruses I write and release into the wild, to which they said that no, they wouldn't have legal ownership of that. So, there's a limit on what they'd own, but there's no clear definition.

It's not yours if your contract doesn't say so by cbr2702 · 2004-07-10 03:35 · Score: 3, Informative

I know many might say that employers own the intellectual property that you generate while working for them, but I don't agree. If I develop something innovative whiile working there, it's mine.

Unless your contract says otherwise, any code you write for your employer is theirs under copyright law as a "work for hire". So if you want your innovative work to be yours, you should make sure your contract says so.

If I come up with a solution for a problem am I supposted to forget the solution and never use it again if I go elsewhere?

Unless the company patents the solution, you can use it. You just can't reuse the code. But if you write a reimplementation while having acess to the original code, you might have trouble convincing a court that your new code is not a derived work.

--

This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.

employee risk by kcim · 2004-07-10 03:36 · Score: 1

It seems to me that companys,may have to screen employees better. This is bad.I can't imagine the audit microsoft may have to do to cover there ass because of this employee.They (microsoft) can't just ask AltaVista to provide code,to make shure there is no infringement on AltaVista code. Is this encroching on the possibility that once you start working in one house (company)you may be tanted to work in others. I remember somebody who worked for Arther Anderson an could not get another acounting job, because of the way thay where trained at anderson. The retraining was cost prohibitive. Will companys start to not hire the experienced, cause of intellectual property concerns?

Announce this FAR and WIDE! by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 03:42 · Score: 1, Funny

Two can play SCO's little game of bashing people for supposed IP violations, but in this case it is Microsoft. Trumpet this article far and wide and forward the it to *ALL* of your friends.

Thanks!

In this case, I hope they do... by zogger · 2004-07-10 03:44 · Score: 1

Although saying it would be like SCO might not be an appropriate analogy. In this case, there is a probability of it being *true*. It's enough to get some judge someplace to think the idea has merit, and to maybe order an independent code review. Who would be competent to do that and who would be willing to do that is a different story, the way the laws are now, because of the contaminated brain aspect of it. That part sucks, but it's what we have to work with in the legal borked system. It would be complicated and nasty and MS lawyers could drag it out, but in the end they would most likely have to submit. It should happen, IMO. I think the entire MS codebase should be audited, for that matter, looking for stolen propietary or open source code. And you can assume I think that on other large closed source projects as well, I simply don't trust them as a default, because I have a near-Calvinistic view of people in general. It's also the reason I don't think any fair and true "free" market can exist outside of theory, there are just too many crimes possible once you add humans to the mix. Same deal with a total government run market/economy, same amount of humans and crime potential. Not to say it shouldn't be attempted,either one or a blend, but you will always get crooked exceptions to the rule that borks it for everyone else.

Yes, I know, this means we live in an unfixable catch 22 society, which means we fix and patch society as bad stuff rears up. It'll always be that way, too..

To get back to pure coding, I think the only rational and even medium logical long term method to make it so there are never any code thefts, is to mandate all open source code in everything, and to eliminatepatenting on code. If you think about it, that's the only way theft CAN'T occur, if it's free for the looking and taking and using in the first place. It can't be stolen then. No one would have to worry about it, they could always just do better stuff, borrowing as they see fit. Then no one would have to worry about it, and the most efficient code devised by humans could be used in as many places and in the most efficient manner as it would fit in, and people wouldn't have to worry about NDAs and cleanroom coding and so on. It would necessitate some business changes, but I think society would adjust once the tangible day to day benefits to everyone became more apparent.

The alternative is what we have now, and it gets more broken and more complex and more costly daily. Pretty soon the only people making money with code per se will be lawyers.

Yep, that's a radical notion, I realise that, but it's what I see coming if it ain't fixed soon..

Bandwidth Wasting? by KrisHolland · 2004-07-10 03:46 · Score: 0, Redundant

"...it's done about 4.5GB of traffic on my site because it's downloading large videos!"

Is there any way to prevent people from using up your bandwidth like this? What if someone continually and purposefully downloads the same file over and over again just to be an idiot?

This seems similar to the hot linking problem, where people link to your images and content from their website so your website gets the bandwidth bill. Has anyone successfully sued over this yet?

--
3dinfo@maficstudios.com

Re:Bandwidth Wasting? by Noksagt · 2004-07-10 04:09 · Score: 0, Redundant

You can prevent robots (such as the MS Search bot) from doing this by prohibiting them from getting these files with your robots.txt file.

As for individuals, you can limit from IP addresses or add a bandwidth throttling/limiting module to Apache or have all downloads through cgi/php/servlets that are able to track useage.

The real question is if MS search is actually doing anything with those large movies. Perhaps instead of having it retrieve whitelisted filetypes, MS has it retrieve EVERYTHING or isn't using a blacklist big enough
Re:Bandwidth Wasting? by hexatron · 2004-07-10 04:28 · Score: 1

I found this is happening on my own little site. I host a rogue game on my site, so some page visits can last for hours.
Two road-runner ip's were downloading the same page once every few seconds (for hours, on some days) and, I guess, using a bad date, because they did not get 304's back, but the full page each time. The page is pretty small, but I noticed a big spike in bytes/day on one day and investigated.
If anyone has an explanation, I'd like to learn it.
My simple solution is to block those ip's in .htaccess -- it stops the traffic but unfairly stops access to my site from those ip's, and the (almost certainly) innocent users of them.
Re:Bandwidth Wasting? by mdamaged · 2004-07-10 06:06 · Score: 1

You can use mod_rewrite to direct that ip to a custom page explaining that they are denied and why, until they email you (give address). Then you can remove the rewrite if you find the user is innocent. Something like this:
RewriteEngine on
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} 111\.111\.111\.111$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/goaway\.html$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*) /goaway.html [R]
You must create goaway.html with your message obviously.
As for the explaination, could be a badly written script, or someone just doesn't like you, or someone is having seizures everytime they goto your site.

--
Someone asked me the difference between ignorance and apathy, I told them I don't know and I don't care.
Re:Bandwidth Wasting? by hexatron · 2004-07-10 10:54 · Score: 1

Thanks for the help. I just implemented and tested it.
And for other users as slow as I am (or god forbid, slower):
1. The lines that begin Rewrite... go into an .htaccess file in the directory to be protected
2. The 111s get replaced with the IP to be blocked
Re:Bandwidth Wasting? by mdamaged · 2004-07-10 11:43 · Score: 1

Happy to help. Also those can go into your httpd.conf within a block as well.

--
Someone asked me the difference between ignorance and apathy, I told them I don't know and I don't care.

he is an undercover linux-terrorist by SilveRo_kun · 2004-07-10 04:09 · Score: 2, Interesting

Searching "Laurent Chavet" on google, I found some of his posts to the Linux-Kernel mailing list.
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0104 .2/0589.html

His e-mail address is @av.com, that is altavista, so it must be him.

Analogy by Dogtanian · 2004-07-10 04:14 · Score: 1

He liberated this information, and should be celebrated as the freedom fighter he is!

No, if this story is correct, he hasn't "freed" it, he's smuggled it out of its AltaVista jail and re-incarcerated it in the Microsoft Super-Max prison.

If he'd (illegally) GPLed it, then it would be "free" and hiding in the "freedom-fighter"/"terrorist"s house, and enemy forces would use this as an excuse to engage in punitive destruction of GPL-supporting villages.

--
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).

What in P4 is stolen from Alpha? by dbc · 2004-07-10 04:20 · Score: 1

Big accusation there. To what, precisely, are you referring? Or are you trying to pull a SCO on us? Alpha was already losing the technology race in the PII timeframe. Let's see some details.

Re:What in P4 is stolen from Alpha? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 05:36 · Score: 4, Informative

I think he incorrectly stated Pentium IV. DEC did sue Intel over infringements on 10 of their technologies used in Alpha chips for the inclusion in Pentium Pro and Pentium II. They ended up settling the case by cross licensing and Intel's purchase of DEC's manufacturing operations.

What's more telling is this quote from DEC v. Intel: TRUE FACTS
Mr. Palmer quoted a passage from the Corporate Focus feature in the August 26, 1996 Wall Street Journal. In the article, entitled "Intel Shifts Its Focus To Long-Term Original Research," Intel COO Craig Barrett is quoted as saying, "Now that we're at the head of the class and there's nothing left to copy."

Said CEO Andy Grove, "We're a big banana now... we can't rely on others to do our research and development for us."

I am working from my memory here. IIRC, Intel was scared silly over the potential of IBM-Apple alliance (which then included Motorola over Apple's uneasiness to be allied with IBM alone) to create an uber-chip called PowerPC. Intel was stuck with 486 without having a clear direction where to go. DEC approached Intel and they discussed the possibility of Intel adopting DEC's technologies. But Intel decided to work alone and created the Pentium line, surprising everybody including AIM. It turned out that Intel managed to do so by using DEC's technologies.

And to add to that... by dbc · 2004-07-10 04:26 · Score: 1

having worked in both proprietary and open source cultures... I think the traing in IP issues is actually better in the well-seasoned open source teams than in many corporate teams. In open source projects, greenhorns don't get to comit changes -- changes always get vetted first. Offenders are whacked with a cluestick. In many corporate cultures, greenhorns are turned loose, and well..., they are guided by their own compass without anyone having checked the calibration of said compass.

he stole the secrets in their source code by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:30 · Score: 0

I'm sure they spent over $5K creating that source code. I'm sure they spent over $100K creating that source code.

How does this not exceed the minimum needed?

Re:/. readers wets pants, reaches for new Depends. by Shaklee39 · 2004-07-10 04:36 · Score: 1

Kinda what I thought, as in "so what" and "perhaps THAT'S why the new MSN test search is SO DAMN SLOW". That is why it is called "beta".

Smells Like a PR Stunt by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 04:38 · Score: 1, Interesting

Smells like a Yahoo! PR stunt to me too. Since the code "stolen" was "used to perform the function of scouring the World Wide Web", if this code was being used at Microsoft in actuality, it seems like that fact would be outwardly visible to people in their httpd logs, in the behavior of the spiders, in what they grab and how they grab it. In other words, a source code compare probably wouldn't be needed - you could tell just by the behavior of the spider that this was the same. Since it's only being alleged that he took it, and not that it was used, I'd bet that it's not being used.

I am now laughing my ass off. by mcc · 2004-07-10 04:40 · Score: 1

I am now thinking back to all those times SCO, and persons trying to bank on SCO's nonsense, alleged that open source software is unsafe because "anyone could have contributed" so "you have no way of knowing if any of the contributions contain stolen intellectual property".

And laughing.

And laughing.

--
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts

Re:/. readers wets pants, reaches for new Depends. by Saeed+al-Sahaf · 2004-07-10 04:41 · Score: 1

That is why it is called "beta".

Learn to spot "humor".

Actually, when the story first came out, when everyone else accused M$ of slanting the search because they could not find "linux", I said this very thing. I had to sooth by burns with BBQ sauce for days after.

--
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck

Hmm.. by SphericalCrusher · 2004-07-10 04:48 · Score: 1

The only true question is that... is this guy still an employee of Microsoft? If so, then we all know something is up. Hah.

--
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher

Oh good.. by Deal-a-Neil · 2004-07-10 05:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

..that means the meta-keyword 7X trick should get me to the top of the search results on MSN Search as it did back in the late 90s. Anyone want to bid on the first 10 positions of any English search term? I'm your daddy.

Haha Haha by cyberzephyr · 2004-07-10 05:09 · Score: 1, Funny

We have always known who you are Neo. :-)

--
I'm here for the experience, not the Hyperbole.

Linux Source Code by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 05:23 · Score: 0

How many lines of source code did M$ stole from google?
How many lines of source code did M$ stole from Linux?

at least we now know that MS search will blow by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 05:28 · Score: 0

I mean, altavista, come on.

Plz help: Where is all the info? by bug+brother · 2004-07-10 05:29 · Score: 1

when you don't have a centrally controlled company bearing the responsibility and managing the Intellectual Prop...

I saw that, laughed and thought I'd look up the dirty history of Microsoft.

Where is all the Microsoft information on the net?

I've read articles through the years about astroturf, theft of code (e.g. quicktime code from Apple), immoral business deals, etc, etc, etc.

There must a good site out there somewhere?

I don't know if I've lost all my Google expertise or something, but.. can someone help?

Re:Plz help: Where is all the info? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 08:30 · Score: 0
You can't lost what you never have? Here is a couple results from Google
- QuickTime case
  Apple sued a small San Francisco software developer that Apple asked to build a Windows version of QuickTime (the program that lets computer users run animation and digitized video on their PCs). Apple alleges that San Francisco Canyon Co. breached its agreement with Apple by working for Intel and producing a program, called DCI, that was incorporated into Microsoft's Video for Windows program. Apple has asked for an injunction, destruction of existing copies, and money damages. (San Jose Mercury News, December 10, 1994, 13D)
- Microsoft sued for alleged thef
  For months, executives at Microsoft Corp. and Burst.com Inc. discussed Burst's technology for transmitting movies and sounds over the Internet more quickly.
  The talks went nowhere, but Microsoft ultimately developed multimedia technology of its own, code-named Corona, prompting Burst to sue Microsoft on charges of theft and anticompetitive behavior.
You may need to be more specific as what "immoral business deals, etc. etc. etc." you refer to. Kinda hard to google "immoral business deals" and Microsoft to return any meaningful cases.

Microsoft being sued by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 05:32 · Score: 0

Rumor has it David Boies has been retained by Altavista's owners to pursue the claim that Altavista now owns Windows, the Microsoft Office Suite and other Microsoft software.

the illegal break-in happened before he was hired by Microsoft.

As SCO has demonstrated (and to which Microsoft position papers concur), this is irrelevant. Viral code is viral, and it does not matter if the virus was spread by a hired programmer (like in Microsoft's case) or some freelance, open source hobbyist. If anything, hiring this individual makes the case stronger than SCO's.

The question is, did Microsoft know anything about it?

Again, irrelevant. IBM didn't have to know about the efforts to release JFS into Linux in order to make Linux SCO property.

How much code was being written into MSN Search?

I'm sure we'll discover "millions and millions" of lines, though even if the code acts like the Altavista code, that's enough. Sure nice Microsoft made this all clear for us in their support of SCO.

Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by ArcticCelt · 2004-07-10 05:40 · Score: 5, Insightful

Yeah and also that damn Einstein who stole the work of Newton first then butchered most of the stuff and claimed that it was obsolete and gave us that relativity thingy. Because we all know that all the inventions and discoveries of human kind are never based on the previous discoveries of the people before us. Of course this is absolutely not the basic principle of existence of our whole civilization. We all Gates haters know that.

--

Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove

Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by Master+of+Transhuman · 2004-07-10 07:11 · Score: 0, Flamebait

While dumpster-diving for source code might be legitimately considered "standing on the shoulders" (or dumpsters) of others, I find it hard to see how Einstein - who did original work BASED on the previous efforts of others - can be compared with Gates nearly fraudulent purchase of QDOS.

Only a Microsoft troll could accept this comparison.

In other words, you're a fucking moron.

--
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by superpulpsicle · 2004-07-10 07:54 · Score: 1

If you were to really steal diamond, you wouldn't go to Kmart. Stealing search code from altavista doesn't seem all that rewarding. Try vivisimo or google or something.
Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by mrchaotica · 2004-07-10 09:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

You've been watching too much Family Guy. Please note that basing his work on the discoveries (i.e. ideas) of Newton but making significant innovations is not infringment. Stealing the papers for "Smith's Theory of Relativity" (the Family Guy reference) would be.

Also, note that all of Newton's work is in the public domain now (and in the early 1900's, when Einstein came up with his theory) anyway.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 10:58 · Score: 0

I was walking my dog along Bel-Red road the last friday afternoon, and Bill Gates jumped out of his Porsche and totally kicked my dog!
Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by Quarter_83 · 2004-07-10 14:52 · Score: 1

Dude, Google didn't even exist at the time. I don't even know what the hell vivisimo is, but I'm sure it didn't exist either. Altavista was la-creme de la creme back in its day.
Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 19:03 · Score: 0

Who in god, or sciences', name deemed this to be 'insightful'??? Oh sure, Einsteins theory of relativity looks like Newtons, if you forget about all the Differential Geometry and Lie Algebras and all the other stuff.

Insightfull???

For computer talk, slashdot = good; for physics it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say otherwise :^(

Off hours, personal tools by nurb432 · 2004-07-10 06:00 · Score: 1

If they try to claim things you do after hours, that wont stand up in court for long.

That is if the 'anything' in question is unrelated to your current paid projects, and on your own time, with your own tools not at the office...

Pretty much the above would be the legal test of ownership.

--
---- Booth was a patriot ----

Dumbest decision ever by theolein · 2004-07-10 06:12 · Score: 1

. The lawsuits were quite nasty, and DEC decided not to press for triple damages on every copy of NT sold in return for NT always being supported on the new Alpha chips from DEC.

If DEC had been as good in court as they were in chip and OS making, they would have stuck to the royalties on NT, from which they would have been able to comfortably live for the rest of their lives without ever having to do a single thing about it.

No doubt, if that had happened, BillG would have shat himself and set about doing a complete rewrite of NT, possibly using someone else's bought up code.

Re:/. readers wets pants, reaches for new Depends. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 06:13 · Score: 0

vlad@lrsehosting.com

Makes you wonder about Microsoft Technology.... by The+Foo · 2004-07-10 06:23 · Score: 1

Microsoft Exec: "Sir, we are hiring you for work on the MSN search engine. What are your previous experiances?"
"Well, I broke into Altavista.com, and stole their search engine code."
Microsoft Exec: "Your Hired."

--
http://www.macinhack.com

Re:Makes you wonder about Microsoft Technology.... by Geak · 2004-07-10 09:45 · Score: 0

This is about the time that the feds say "OK, so you sign a statement that you were hired on the basis that you would include your stolen source code into the Microsoft search engine and we will cut you a deal." It's a big fish little fish thing.

How did you come to this conclusion? by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 06:27 · Score: 0

The question is...

Ah yes, have to bash Microsoft, so obviously that is the question.

Slash-tards, same as always.

Ok, I'll be honest. by titzandkunt · 2004-07-10 06:28 · Score: 1

I've been in the game since ...Oh, lessee ...1991, in 5 companies.

And how much source code have I kept since then?

Nothing. Nada. Nil.

Why? Partially because i know it's not mine to keep, but mainly because I've realised that every job I've done could be done so much better now that I know what I know. The source is not important: What I've learned *is*.

BTW, trophy aquisition is a big indicator for psychopathy I'd stop that if i were you. Or can't you stop?!

T&K.

--
Political language ... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable...

Re:Good lord. by Archibald+Buttle · 2004-07-10 07:12 · Score: 2, Funny

Moderators, please mod parent as -1 "Dick".

Whilst Cutler may have been one of the people that wrote VMS he did so for DEC. It doesn't matter if he wrote it or not, DEC owned the code, and probably also owned many of the ideas that the code contained in the form of patents. Since Cutler did not own the IP here if he did cut and paste in code from an aborted version of VMS then he, and by extension Microsoft, did steal, unless DEC sold had the rights to that code and the patents to Cutler or Microsoft. I don't believe such a sale was made.

As for Intel and Alpha, as has been written elsewhere the parent post was wrong about it being the P4, it was the Pentium that this issue revolved around. Whilst Intel may now own the Alpha they didn't when they made the Pentium, and chronology is important here.

Besides some bad decisions by the management of DEC this stealing of IP by Intel and Microsoft were major contributors to the downfall of DEC.

Re:Good lord. by Master+of+Transhuman · 2004-07-10 07:14 · Score: 1

"Quit your bullshit lying about Cutler stealing VMS - he wrote the fucking thing you stupid ass."

Uh, moron, that was not the point. The point was that he brought the whole thing (and even the EMPLOYEES) over to Microsoft who used it to write NT. Thus prompting lawsuits from DEC because he presumably violated his contract in doing so.

Where in the OP do you see the OP saying Cutler "stole" VMS? The OP explicitly says he wrote it.

Moron.

--
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!

Both Sides by Jane_Dozey · 2004-07-10 08:05 · Score: 1

The actual facts of what have happened aside (The employee may or may not have stolen code/rewritten something similar, implimented it on MSN search etc) it does show that the issue of stolen code isn't an OSS centric problem. It'll be good if companies see this and realise that it's a risk of buying ANY software and not just one or the other.

--
Silly rabbit

Re:Yeah and also that damn Einstein...Not Really by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 08:14 · Score: 0

Well as someone with a couple degrees in physics I can tell you have no analogy here. Physics starts with a few basic assumptions about the nature of the universe and derives equations that predict the behavior of the physical world. When Einstein developed the theory of relatively he threw out the assumptions of Newton and produced a counter intuitive and startling accurate theory that predicts the actions and interactions of energy, matter and time. It was an amazing intellectual leap at a time when only a small amount of data was available on behavior of matter at near light speeds. Newtonian physic has been shown be to only be an approximation of the theories of relativity which is reasonably good predictor for interactions at velocities far below light speed. (Which yes is where all of us spend all of our time.) There was nothing plodding or cumulative about Einstein development of relativity. It threw out all of what came before. The discoverers of relativity and quantum mechanics had to fight to get their new theories accepted. It might be safe to say that few analogies carry well from Physics to the world of business and software but, to say we all just build on what came before, us like tunneling drones in an ant hill, belittles the accomplishments of everyone that came before, and is a frightening mind set.

Re:Good lord. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 08:16 · Score: 0

Actually RTFP

The hard lessons of David Cutler stealing VMS to create NT worked really well

That's where he says it.

Moron.

Moot by Tatarize · 2004-07-10 08:34 · Score: 1

Microsoft sucks, Altavista sucks... done and done. Now if they ever start stealing google code, its time to draw blood. But, as is they doubtfully will be a tenth as good. Though, I'm sure microsoft will build it into their browers. And hey I still can't get internet shortcuts to load the default browser from the favorates menu. Else I wouldn't see IE at all.

--

It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.

Re:Good lord. by tugfoigel · 2004-07-10 08:42 · Score: 1

Not quite - When VMS was written there was no such thing as a "software patent." DEC owned the intellectul property that was visible to anyone who licensed a copy of VMS and got some of the VMS source with it.

Re:/. readers wets pants, reaches for new Depends. by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 08:56 · Score: 0

On behalf of everyone in the internet community, I'd like to inform you that the u$e of a dollar sign in$tead of an 'S' in the initial$ of Microsoft ha$ been deemed really fucking old. It wa$n't clever when it first $urfaced, while $ome of u$ were $till in grammar $chool, and it $ure a$ hell i$n't clever now.

We all know you are a leet lunix master, there's no need to pose for us, too.

hmmm by mattyrobinson69 · 2004-07-10 09:23 · Score: 1

what were altavista running at the time (OS + webserver)?

this post it just out of interest (i'd like to say it was insecure microsoft software but i doubt they'd run windows)

Re:hmmm by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2004-07-10 10:09 · Score: 1

what were altavista running at the time (OS + webserver)?
Funny thought, however Alta Vista started out as a technical demonstration project by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) for their then new Alpha processor boxes. They went out looking for a really big problem to solve, and found it in the attempt to index the web in something close to real-time with excellent transaction response time back to user queries. In that regard it was exceptionally successful, and became the leading search engine until eventually (in many people's minds) being eclisped by Google, which runs on huge farms of "white box" PC's running Linux.

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

RE: avoiding lawsuits for code theft by King_TJ · 2004-07-10 09:57 · Score: 1

Actually, in today's environment - I have my doubts you *can* avoid a lawsuit if you work on a similar project to a competitor's existing one, and you previously worked for them in any development capacity.

I'm not an app developer myself, so correct me if this seems "way out of line", but I find it hard to believe someone can memorize enough "proprietary code" to go use it in some new project for a competitor. If they didn't blatantly steal a copy of the source and copy/paste lines in, I think the most you'd normally see is them trying to recreate some basic concepts in their own way.

These days though, it seems like you can get slapped with a lawsuit for making anything that even looks remotely similar on the surface - despite your code being completely different than the claimed "original work" you're borrowing from.

Re:Already convicted -- Not Exactly by Nom+du+Keyboard · 2004-07-10 10:18 · Score: 1

To cut a long story short...Company X had a license to USE some code from Company Z.

Ahem, reading the article says:

Softimage's code illegally included proprietary software from another company.

Doesn't sound to me like an licensing issue. More like MS bought a company already illegally using someone else's "patented" or otherwise protected code, and now get the blame for the whole thing. That's not quite fair to MS.

--
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."

Heh! What Makes ME Laugh... by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 11:05 · Score: 0

...is that the ONLY link on the page which doesn't work is the one for The Girl.

Yep, he's a geek all right...

Re:/. readers wets pants, reaches for new Depends. by aichpvee · 2004-07-10 11:49 · Score: 0

Besides, the new school spelling adds more context: micros~1

--
The Farewell Tour II

On his resume? by geekee · 2004-07-10 12:00 · Score: 2, Funny

"However, the illegal break-in happened before he was hired by Microsoft. The question is, did Microsoft know anything about it? "

Yeah, I'm sure that was a bullet item on his resume.

--
Vote for Pedro

You most very brave to insult people like that! by ArcticCelt · 2004-07-10 12:23 · Score: 1

Feel better now kid? Your comment is a triumphant demonstration of your education, "savoir vivre" and intellect.

You truly deserve an official award for your witty analyze and constructive conclusion. Can you give me your trailer park address so we can deliver it?

Because truly, I think you most be also very brave to insult people like that as you hide masturbating behind your computer.

--

Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove

Re:You most very brave to insult people like that! by Master+of+Transhuman · 2004-07-11 10:20 · Score: 1

Hey, fuckwad!

As for "kid", I'm 55.

As for hiding, my address is 440 Eddy Street, Apt. 424, San Francisco, CA.

I did eight years in the Federal pen for armed bank robbery, including four at Leavenworth Penitentiary, the last two of those in The Hole.

Come on down.

Bring your buddies. You'll need them.

Kid.

--
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!

Daniel Feussner is dead... that's why by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 14:34 · Score: 0

Anti-freeze isn't good for you...

Re:Good lord. by ThisIsFred · 2004-07-10 16:25 · Score: 1

Hmm. That's more detail then I was able to find when I first heard about this many years ago. The Intel fiasco is outright stealing, but I'm not so sure about the Microsoft-DEC fiasco. Were there design choices that DEC was dragging their feet to implement? In this case, I think DEC may have got what they deserved. Thank goodness this can't happen with open source software, where poorly maintained or stagnant projects are simply forked or moved into something better.

--
Fred

"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS

Forget the breakin, this is the real story by donbrock · 2004-07-10 17:17 · Score: 1

>A Microsoft spokeswoman, Tami Begasse, referred questions about the criminal investigation to the FBI, and said company policy requires employees act "honestly and ethically, and comply with all laws and regulations."

When did this become a Microsoft policy?

--
The Truth About Slashdot

CRACKED! NOT HACKED! I give up. by osjedi · 2004-07-10 18:58 · Score: 1

Here we are trying to educate the whole non-geek populace of planet earth that breaking into a computer, network, or application is 'Cracking', not 'Hacking', and WE CAN'T EVEN GET IT RIGHT AMONG OURSELVES!!!!!!! ARRRRRRGGGG!!!!! I give up.

--
-=-=-=-=- osjedi uses Debian GNU/Linux. -=-=-=-=-

Facts from an insider by Anonymous Coward · 2004-07-10 20:21 · Score: 0

Here are the facts from an insider, expanding on the FBI affidavit:

The AltaVista operations team experienced two incidents of large quantities of data mysteriously disappearing. Each incident was suspicious - only particular types of files were deleted, not entire file systems, and no malicious software was left behind. The data was intermediate data used in building the production search index. It took many man-days of effort to recover the data.

After the second incident, the operations team correlated the deletions with suspicious logins by an existing employee (not Laurent) and external remote access to that employee's account. At that point, AltaVista was very concerned that someone was deliberately trying to sabotage a key business process, and they called in the FBI, who took over the investigation. It was the FBI who traced IP addresses, identified Laurent, and discovered AltaVista proprietary code on Laurent's computer.

Laurent quit AltaVista after demanding a raise (the third in a year) and a promotion and not receiving them. He was intimately acquainted with the processes used to build the data that was deleted.

Laurent's computer accounts were disabled the day he quit. (AltaVista was paranoid about ex-employees, after its many rounds of layoffs in the previous two years.) He used social engineering (a colleague's account) to gain access to the production computers where the data was deleted.

The affidavit mentioned that Laurent admitted downloading the W3Trek software module to his computer after quitting AltaVista. The W3Trek module was a layer Laurent wrote that distributed Web crawling across multiple machines; it was built upon the core crawler originally written in the DEC research labs. A number of senior people on the engineering team thought it wasn't very good, and there was much debate within the engineering team about replacing all or parts of it.

It's just the MS corporate culture by 2TecTom · 2004-07-11 10:57 · Score: 1

"A Microsoft spokeswoman, Tami Begasse, referred questions about the criminal investigation to the FBI, and said company policy requires employees act "honestly and ethically, and comply with all laws and regulations."

I'm guessing Tami meant non-executive employees. Of course, I suspect that Chavet was simply inspired by Bill's legendary zeal for illegal excesses.

You know society is going to shit when we glorify the greedy.

--
Words to men, as air to birds.

I hate Internet bully's by ArcticCelt · 2004-07-11 13:56 · Score: 1

From my part I am 31 years old 5'11 and weight 205 pounds and trained presently for my black belt in Tae Kwon Do. I came from a poor family in a tough neighborhood and went to a tough high schools but I never went to prison and I do not plan to go either. My goal in this short life is to do successful and constructive things and help people around me. Not insult them without provocation or attack them. If you went to prison you probably witnessed more dramatic situations than a flame war on slashdot and I can somewhat understand that you don't consider it a big deal insulting people around (you are using the word moron in almost a third of your posts and even in your profile description) but I still don't agree with your attitude and find it childish, 55 years or not.

When I come on slashdot I do like to debate with people who have different opinions. The beginning of your post was in that sense and I have no problem with that. On another hand your gratuitous attacks at the end of your comment disgust me totally. People who come to slashdot to vent their frustration on the other with cheap easy canned insults the same way that others beat their wife or weak people just because they can repulse me to the highest levels. In other words I hate Internet bully's as much as I hate real ones.

I also hate caned easy attacks on public people like politicians, scientists, successful businessman's or humanists. I find it very lame to say that everything related to Linus and Steve Jobs is gold and everything related to Bill Gates its turd. I like to have a much more sophisticated way of thinking that involved analyzing the situation instead of following the crowd or the pseudo-anti-crowd. That as been said this comment as been composed on a Linux system.

--

Yahh, hiii haaaaa! -Major Kong, from Dr. Strangelove

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Microsoft Employee Allegedly Hacked AltaVista

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