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Microsoft Steals Code From Microblogging Startup
Readers davidlougheed and TSHTF both let us know that microblogging service Plurk reported today that Microsoft China not only copied look and feel from its interface, but also copied raw code from Plurk's service, when it released its own microblogging service called MSN Juku (or Mclub). In instances of the code released on the Plurk blog, the layout, code structure, and variable names were very similar or in some cases 100% identical. The story has been covered in multiple media sources. The software theft is hypocritical, given Microsoft's past threats against Chinese software piracy."
the Chinese portion of anything is going to deny it's theft and call the original coders liars. The Chinese are great about this, the government mindset is embedded in the younger citizens - such as "We do not filter our Internet access, we have a few routing issues."
Yeah, right.
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Any opportunity to flame Microsoft will be taken advantage of.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
rarely reaches the mass media news? but when a filesharer "steals" some software things happens in a completely different way.
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
Microsoft? Hypocrites? NO WAY! Welcome to what you can do when you have exponentially more money than the people you're stealing from.
Anyone who wants to dispute this needs to review history first. And anyone who doubts this also needs to review history. Has Microsoft changed their ways? Maybe - but it doesn't look like it given stories like this.
This is why open source will ultimately win. It's just too tempting to use someone else's code rather than writing your own code to do the same thing. The fact that a large software company like Microsoft has succumbed to this simply shows how widely adopted this mindset is becoming. Of course, Microsoft was still wrong to do this.
Ah the good old "It wasn't me!"-defense. Big corporations are never responsible. It was always somebody else's fault. Good for them.
Oh, I think Microsoft will take responsibility - my personal bet is that the service isn't going to come back online, and someone is going to cop an absolute reaming within Microsoft (probably someone at MS China). The real question is whether MS will attempt to settle with Plurk to head off a lawsuit - I'd say they've probably got one justifiably incoming. Because MS takes such a strong anti-infringement position, they're not going to be able to just shrug this off.
How can this be stealing?
Nothing physical was lost, only data was copied and Plurk lost nothing!
Also, it's not piracy, because we all know that piracy only happens on ships at sea!
Therefore, it is only logical that the title of this article be changed to "Microsoft Shares Code with Microblogging Startup".
Folks it's Microsoft "China" which means the Chinese culture working in a Microsoft owned building in China. There is likely major cultural misunderstanding or forces that are at work here beyond the fact the brand is Microsoft. That's a very hard thing to manage for any transcontinental company.
That's a very hard thing to manage for any transcontinental company.
And that's why you either monitor things very closely or keep the code writing at home. Regardless of the fact that it's Microsoft China, it was Microsoft's choice to set up the organization, it was their choice to put whoever was in charge of managing the operation and the code from that organization in their position and, ultimately, they bear the responsibilities for those actions. Especially given that it's a company that screams to high heaven about IP rights (and specifically, issues with IP rights in the far east).
Bottom line, Microsoft deserves everything negative it gets from this.
That is all.
Just who do you think the media is?
A loose conglomerate of huge corporations that represent corporate viewpoints with rare exception, or a group of journalists with integrity who focus on keeping regular citizens informed and government and business in check?
If Fox news picks the story up, it'll be about how a huge business can't possibly be expected to keep tabs on all of it's subsidiaries. Which will immediately be followed by another story bashing ACORN, all without a hint of irony.
- China has the Great Firewall.
- The US has illegal wiretaps.
Tiananmen Square vs. Tiananmen Square
Illegal wiretaps are nasty invasions of privacy and are a wrong that the U.S. government committed. You can read about and debate them in thousands of blog posts and news articles, none of which are censored. That's how you know about it. The same cannot be said of many things within China.
Cultural relativism is the most lazy mental posture there is. "Hey, we're all different and about equally evil." Then it's ok to drift through life, I guess?
Humans and human institutions make mistakes and commit evil acts sometimes--including the U.S. The value of the U.S. system is the freedom to acknowledge, publicize, and debate them, and effect change. Since 2006 we've switched out the leadership of our legislative and executive branches--against the will of the incumbents. Of course I won't be surprised if you apply a similar cultural relativistic point of view to that too: "both parties are the same, they're equally evil." How convenient.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.