Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Acknowledges Theft of Code From Plurk
adeelarshad82 writes with news that Microsoft has acknowledged and taken responsibility for the theft of code belonging to Plurk.com, although the company also said it was the work of a Chinese vendor. Yesterday we discussed Plurk's blog post accusing Microsoft of copying their UI and code for Microsoft's Chinese microblogging site, Juku. Microsoft has now taken the site down and indefinitely suspended Juku's beta.
I feel like accusing them of sleeping with my mother if I knew they would publicly admit to doing so.
While I'm sure this is a valid reason - that their contractors ripped of the code - is that an excuse to absolve them of blame? Hell no! MS needs to held responsible. What incentive do they have to prevent this kind of thing in the future if they aren't forced to take responsibility? And by responsibility, I don't mean blaming it on their contractor. This is a big "duh" that this is going to happen when you outsource to a country where the labor is cheap and cheating is culturally acceptable such that nobody gives a damn if they get caught. I've had to work with Indian contractors who ripped off code, which we identified thanks to just a little bit of diligence on our part because we actually want to know what we're releasing and charging our customers for.
Companies need to be held responsible for overseeing what their contractors are doing. Blaming the contractor != taking responsibility. That it was their contractors who stole might be the reason, but it is ABSOLUTELY NOT AN EXCUSE!
What's wrong with ripping off code? If Microsoft rips off code from these people and these people rip off code from microsoft in return, both (and by extension the end users) benefit.
Name one person who has done this. "Slashdot" is not a singular entity.
The headline was written by 'adeelarshad82'. Please point out where that SAME ONE PERSON has advocated removing copyright for movies and music. Otherwise, please acknowledge the GP as correct.
Having a corporate culture/pride/ethics that would make code theft unlikely
How exactly do you propose that Microsoft force Chinese programmers to work according to their ethics? That's like MS opening a shop in Mexico and trying to explain to everyone that they no longer take naps in the middle of the work day, or opening a shop in Saudi Arabia where they get a vacation on Christmas but not Ramadan.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
And no, we don't need to respect closed source
Why not? Because you don't want to?
Fuck you.
People write closed source code for a living. It is a real, tangible product with real, tangible costs.
How about I go to your house and just take what I want?
Basically, when you are employed or contracted by a company and doing something on their behalf, the company is responsible for your actions (at least in the USA). So if (for example) a UPS truck runs down a child, UPS is responsible for what happened. The driver may be the one who caused this, but he was working for UPS so he's acting as their agent.
And this seems to apply here, too. Maybe it was "Chinese programmers" who stole someone else's code. But since they were working for Microsoft when they did it, they were acting as Microsoft's agents and this is Microsoft's problem. The Slashdot crowd can spin and argue this all they want - but I'd hope that they'd take a look at WHO BENEFITS FROM THIS CODE THEFT and understand that "plausible deniability" doesn't work in the real world.
Too many corporations these days try to parse the law very carefully and do whatever they can get away with. Maybe Microsoft wasn't the first, but they are the most commonly "caught" at going just a little too far. Can the PR people and the marketing people generate enough BS to make it OK? That's up to you but it doesn't work for me.