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931 points sohzm | 38 comments | | HN request time: 3.396s | source | bottom
1. danielpkl ◴[] No.44461271[source]
Hi everyone, this is Daniel from the Pickle team. Glass is a new open source project from us that we plan to build on and improve. We built several original features for it like live summaries, real-time STT Transcript and one-click "Ask" from summary that we're very excited about. However in initially building it we included code from a GPL-licensed project that we incorrectly attributed as Apache. This was incorrect and sloppy work on our end. We made a quick fix and are working right now to do a proper fix that addresses the issues fully and cleanly. We are sorry to the original author of the project, Soham (CheatingDaddy), and thank him for pointing this out. We are also sorry to the open source community for messing up here. Thanks everyone for caring about this.
replies(13): >>44461278 #>>44461400 #>>44461617 #>>44461651 #>>44461660 #>>44462238 #>>44462445 #>>44462609 #>>44462623 #>>44463683 #>>44464129 #>>44464894 #>>44466881 #
2. icar ◴[] No.44461278[source]
Nice try
3. sebmellen ◴[] No.44461400[source]
The correct approach is to license your code as GPL v3 with Soham as the author. It's a simple fix.
4. ayongpm ◴[] No.44461617[source]
You won’t be forgiven unless you restore the license to GPL v3.
replies(1): >>44461639 #
5. ayongpm ◴[] No.44461639[source]
You restored the license to GPL v3: https://github.com/pickle-com/glass/commit/5c462179acface889...

You won't be forgiven unless you credited sohzm and state that cheating-daddy is a direct inspiration

replies(1): >>44462051 #
6. csomar ◴[] No.44461651[source]
> This was incorrect and sloppy work on our end. We made a quick fix and are working right now to do a proper fix that addresses the issues fully and cleanly.

There is no fix. Your work is derived and should be/will be licensed as GPL. You do not want to accidentally succeed and then find you have nothing. You are being a smart-ass here.

7. oefrha ◴[] No.44461660[source]
Hiding the entire history of this incident[1] behind a force push[2] to make it seem as if credit was given and proper license was chosen from the start really displays a lack of integrity, and tells me it’s definitely malicious (which should be quite clear from zero mention of the original project to begin with, but this act reinforces that) rather an inadvertent screwup.

[1] https://github.com/pickle-com/glass/commits/5c462179acface88...

[2] https://github.com/pickle-com/glass/commit/4c51d5133c4987fa1...

replies(2): >>44461794 #>>44462824 #
8. sakjur ◴[] No.44461794[source]
I don’t think the rebase is malicious. Would they even be allowed to continue distributing the older commits (where they claim an Apache license) or would that be to perpetuate the license violation?
replies(2): >>44461849 #>>44462023 #
9. oefrha ◴[] No.44461849{3}[source]
I'm too jaded to pointlessly debate all the misunderstandings about copyright and licenses. Bottom line is, this case is clearly not going to court, so there's no entity allowing or not allowing them to do anything, the only thing that matters is does this act of hiding enrages the original author even more? My answer to that is yes. Plus that old commit is still there, accessible after a couple of rather obscure clicks, so it's not even taken down if you want to debate technicalities.
10. michaelmrose ◴[] No.44462023{3}[source]
I think the assumption that the license.txt in a given revision is accurate an applicable is erroneous. One is expected to follow the license.txt in the main repo regardless of revision.
replies(1): >>44463741 #
11. sam1r ◴[] No.44462051{3}[source]
I love comments like this ^. It provides a solution to the table, rather than conversing the problem over dinner.

IMO This sounds pretty fair to me. Publicly apologize somewhere, and link OP to it. I like that. Or come on, at least Venmo "the kid" $1000 -- "a kid" who saved you time, and is putting food on your table.

"A kid" whose idea you took and profited on. Wow, just realizing upon writing this -- what if Pickle CEO has kids, and one your kid reads this?

12. ankit219 ◴[] No.44462238[source]
Calling it sloppy work is too charitable. It's one thing for others to give you a benefit of the doubt, it's absolutely crazy that you yourself are doing it. It's clear if the other guy did not speak up, you would not have "corrected" the incorrect attribution. Your entire repo uses the work from someone else, and you did not even credit the person who built it until he called you out for the deception.
13. neya ◴[] No.44462445[source]
> This was incorrect and sloppy work on our end

Cut the grandoise talk. You stole someone's work and now you just shrug it off as "incorrectly attributed as Apache". That's not a mistake, that's a deliberate action plan. The force push others have mentioned is the proof. Atleast be honest in your apology.

I hope YC takes serious action and eliminates you guys from their cohort if you're still in one. This reflects very poorly on them otherwise.

14. sampl3username ◴[] No.44462609[source]
If you had any semblance of respect for the work of others and what is right you would sincerely apologize and shut the project down instead of rolling with it.
replies(1): >>44463504 #
15. crystaln ◴[] No.44462623[source]
Hard to say that your work isn't derived from a GPL project if you quite openly are reimplementing a GPL project you used at the core of your own project.
16. Mashimo ◴[] No.44462824[source]
A few weeks ago people on here where mad at a company (Microsoft?) for NOT force pushing the corrected credit of a source code.

You just can't win.

replies(1): >>44462928 #
17. oefrha ◴[] No.44462928{3}[source]
A good lesson that you should NOT do shady shit?
replies(2): >>44463705 #>>44463721 #
18. sam1r ◴[] No.44463504[source]
Or how about an apology to handle it better with the company moving forward, and engage communication with the repo creator to involve him.

Really it's more of the gesture, to set the example, since we've all seen this before, and AFAIK, there haven't been too many amicable outcomes.

19. eqvinox ◴[] No.44463683[source]
> This was incorrect and sloppy work […]

You meant: this was illegal and unethical work.

You might be lucky with the original author not suing you. I'm not sure your backers will be equally kind. I certainly wouldn't, depending on what exactly you told your investors we may be looking at straight up securities fraud here.

replies(1): >>44463722 #
20. gwd ◴[] No.44463705{4}[source]
Do you never ever do anything that's wrong?

If so, well, I guess good for you; but the rest of us sometimes screw up. There needs to be a path for redemption. Admit you were at fault, make it right, do better next time.

ETA And, it doesn't matter whether people do the above steps because they "really mean it", or because they're just afraid of the consequences otherwise; any more than it matters, from a societal perspective, if people refrain from stealing or murdering because they're good people, or because they're afraid of being thrown in jail.

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21. reaperducer ◴[] No.44463722[source]
You meant: this was illegal and unethical work.

But... but... but... Velocity! And moats! And we're VC-funded! Doesn't that mean we can do whatever we want?

replies(1): >>44463762 #
22. jcelerier ◴[] No.44463741{4}[source]
Absolutely not, if a project relicensed and someone on earth did a git clone with a previous license that gave some specific rights, the previous commits keep their license (or if the license was incorrect you can go to court)
replies(1): >>44475203 #
23. aleph_minus_one ◴[] No.44463762{3}[source]
> And we're VC-funded! Doesn't that mean we can do whatever we want?

Side remark: Since YC claims all the time that they invest in people, not in ideas, YC should perhaps part from the people behind Pickle very fast, since by their investment YC rubber-stamped that the people behind Pickle are great ones (but not necessarily the product of Pickle), something that YC perhaps does not want to uphold anymore. :-)

24. oefrha ◴[] No.44463827{5}[source]
They were given a chance to admit they were at fault. They instead bullshitted about “sloppy work”. You just don’t accidentally take someone else’s work, strip their name and brand it as your own, and brag about “built in three days” or some shit.

And even if they handled it very gracefully afterwards, don’t expect everyone to be happy about it. That’s Mashimo’s problem isn’t it, someone’s gonna criticize regardless. No shit!

Btw, I have never ever taken someone else’s work and brand it as my own without credit, or cheat someone in any other way (or at the very least, never intentionally). Thank you for asking. I don’t think that’s a high bar to clear.

replies(1): >>44464483 #
25. nchmy ◴[] No.44464114{5}[source]
you're conflating (obfuscating?) honest oversights with what seems to be a clearly and intentionally dishonest series of actions
replies(1): >>44464584 #
26. conartist6 ◴[] No.44464129[source]
Can I ask if this was an LLM mistake?
27. gwd ◴[] No.44464483{6}[source]
> They were given a chance to admit they were at fault. They instead bullshitted about “sloppy work”.

So just to point out, here you're complaining about them not performing step 1 on the redemption path sufficiently well. That's a fair criticism; but I'd point out that the "Just admit you screwed up and don't try to explain because you're just making excuses for yourself" principle is neither so self-evident nor so well-known that it's fair to expect everyone to magically know it.

What Mashimo's problem is that with regard to the "make it right" step, it's really not clear what to do in this case regarding the git history. Do you take it out? People complain you're trying to hide your sins. Do you leave it in? People complain the other way too.

This shows that the right answer is not self-evident; which means we need to cut people slack. It also means that we as a community need to figure out what is the right way to "make it right" when people do a bogus relicensing, so that there's a clear path to redemption.

But your response to Mashimo wasn't trying to help define a clear path to redemption; your response was basically, "If there's no path to redemption, that's your problem, you shouldn't have screwed it up in the first place."

That attitude is only going to harm our community in the long run. If there's no way to redeem yourself, why bother doing anything at all? Just keep claiming rights over the source code and tell the author "so sue me", knowing there's no way he'll get a fraction of his legal fees back. Or, abide by the letter of the law but don't admit fault.

> Btw, I have never ever taken someone else’s work and brand it as my own without credit

So it's, "Some things need a path for redemption and other things don't." And as it happens, the things that don't need a path for redemption are things you've never done.

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28. gwd ◴[] No.44464584{6}[source]
No I'm not. I'm not saying there should never be any consequences. But there should be a way to make things right again, even if you did it on purpose.
replies(1): >>44467023 #
29. tom_m ◴[] No.44464894[source]
Ok you crook.
30. oefrha ◴[] No.44464944{7}[source]
> "Some things need a path for redemption and other things don't."

I'm not putting them in jail. I can't even criticize them online? Who's in the way of their redemption, whatever that means? Yeah I'm proud I'm not guilty of shady shit, now kindly get off my lawn with your moral relativism.

31. Matthyze ◴[] No.44465761{5}[source]
There needs to be a path to redemption, yes, but this very clearly isn't it.
replies(1): >>44487627 #
32. Apocryphon ◴[] No.44466881[source]
Credit the original creator as a consultant and give him equity
33. nchmy ◴[] No.44467023{7}[source]
Well, thus far they've only made things worse by trying to bullshit their way out of it, and not tried to "make it right" in any sense.

I hope the strongest appropriate consequences for this come their way, though likely nothing will happen.

Meanwhile you're just trying to handwave it all away

34. nchmy ◴[] No.44467051{7}[source]
Whatever the path is - could even be paying or even hiring the original dev - they haven't done ANYTHING in that direction.

You're just having some abstract, theoretical conversation that has no basis in what has happened

replies(1): >>44467862 #
35. gwd ◴[] No.44467862{8}[source]
> You're just having some abstract, theoretical conversation that has no basis in what has happened

I'm having a conversation about principles; and my principle is that there should be a path to redemption. When people screw up, instead of just knee-jerk piling on because we can, we should ask, "What would be a reasonable thing to expect them to do to make it right?"

> Whatever the path is - could even be paying or even hiring the original dev

Sure, this would be a strong action on the "making it right" direction.

> they haven't done ANYTHING in that direction.

This just isn't true. They said they said they were in the wrong. They changed the license, removing all traces of the illegal license. That's not nothing.

Yes, they also downplayed their mistake, which kind of undermines the "admit fault" step. Yes, they could have gone much further to make things right, by for instance hiring the original dev.

They could have done better, but they also could have done worse.

replies(1): >>44469910 #
36. nchmy ◴[] No.44469910{9}[source]
You're either not communicating in good faith, or just a complete fool.

Any sensible person would agree with you in the abstract.

But you're having the conversation in a thread where the person who should be seeking redemption has done the opposite. What you seem to considerinimally redeeming and seemingly even applauding, MANY people consider to be making the situation worse - a disingenuous apology, and only because they got caught. THAT is what we're piling on about, not the initial (egregious) infraction.

Anyway, I'm done here.

37. michaelmrose ◴[] No.44475203{5}[source]
I don't think a court is going to understand git revisions. I also don't think a person reverting to timepoint 1 with license A changes the fact that they received it at time point 2 offered under license B.

At best the license.txt that accompanies a particular revision can serve as a sign post of what license applies it is not dispositive and if the sign post is wrong it was your bad for failing to understand what license applied before distributing.

38. Mashimo ◴[] No.44487627{6}[source]
My point was, when you not force push then people on hacker news will also say "this clearly is not the path to redemption"