[HN Gopher] Instead of collaborating or supporting me, Google st...
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Instead of collaborating or supporting me, Google stole my idea
Author : FloatArtifact
Score : 245 points
Date : 2023-09-14 21:14 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| athorax wrote:
| "be evil whenever possible" - Google, maybe (probably)
| [deleted]
| lainga wrote:
| I'd like to hear the other side of the story from the GOOG
| employee who has been mentioned in the issue []
|
| [] https://github.com/lmoroney
|
| ed. not GOOG user, employee, but GH user, you know...
| gman83 wrote:
| It seems like this guy has nothing to do with this project? I
| mean, he could have told other Googler's about this idea, but
| maybe it's just a coincidence?
| lainga wrote:
| Based on a sibling comment I thought he might have merely
| collected information about Mr Oz's project, in a DevRel
| role, and someone else gotten hold of it. But IANAL and
| IANAJ, I just thought that since he's been mentioned he'd
| like to speak for himself. Esp. considering what some of the
| sibling comments are saying.
| pedalpete wrote:
| The first things that come to mind are
|
| 1) why would Google steal this instead of bringing Oz onto the
| team, which assumes he wanted to work for Google)
|
| 2) what can we as a community do to support Oz .
|
| Oz, if you're reading this, you're obviously a very capable
| person, how do you think we can support you. Not just in relation
| to MidiBlocks, but beyond. That is just one project, I'm sure
| you've got more in you, if you want to pursue other things.
| romanhn wrote:
| With a big company like Google you can't just randomly hire
| someone without putting them through the rigorous interview
| process that can be months long (been there, done that),
| accomplishments or not (see the Homebrew dude).
| rmbyrro wrote:
| They have thousands of contractors and consultants that don't
| go through this process. That's not a valid reason.
| dappermanneke wrote:
| of course not, you have to acquire their LLC to let them skip
| the interview process. so building stuff does count, but only
| if done commercially
| swader999 wrote:
| They should just be good about this but I guess that isn't their
| motto. And I tend not to believe articles like this.
| dappermanneke wrote:
| sounds like this dude got caught in someone's promo packet
| assembly. i wouldn't worry too much if i were him. this'll be
| deprecated in three years or so once it served its purpose to
| signal how good of an engineer the person who made it as part of
| their promo package is
| rg111 wrote:
| I am here to say something tangential.
|
| I found that deeplearning.ai and GoogleX in edX had some MOOCs
| where the person who is facing the allegation was an instructor.
|
| After some minutes, I found the person to be average, and not
| really up to my expectations as an instructor in AI. The rigor of
| those MOOCs were quite low, too.
|
| Digging up, I found that he was an "AI Advocate" at Google, which
| is just devrel. He is not a full-fledged developer or a scientist
| or research engineer.
|
| Of course, I didn't finish or purchase those MOOCs.
| kristjansson wrote:
| I think this is useful context and deserves fewer downvotes
| than it currently has.
| chaps wrote:
| Oz, if you're reading this -- is there anything we can do to
| support you and your work?
| steeve wrote:
| That was a lot darker than I thought it would be. Google should
| absolutely respond.
|
| As for Oz, what an incredible story.
| metadat wrote:
| And no reply from Elgoog since this was posted back in May, now
| more than 4 months ago. "Disappointing" would be an
| understatement.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Google is known for doing this as seen in this other HN post
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929
|
| As well I met them and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was
| a decade ago around the same time Sonos met with them and they
| did similar to Sonos. Though Sonos recently won their case
| against them https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-
| google-pate....
| rmbyrro wrote:
| > Though Sonos recently won their case against them
|
| Ouch. That one hurt. Google is looking worse every day. Is it
| going to be "the Yahoo of tomorrow?"
| klipklop wrote:
| Agreed, the story is so wild it's hard to believe at first.
| ingenieroariel wrote:
| I have a lot of respect for Oz's ability to ship and skills /
| imagination.
|
| Only thing I can think of is for people to think thoroughly the
| license they set. BSD in this case, 4 years ago. And to not take
| any contributions unless they sign a CLA so the license can be
| changed in the future.
|
| As for my own point of view, I screen apps/libraries that are not
| MIT/BSD/Apache2 and I may want to link statically to or sell
| services for and try to sponsor on Github projects I rely heavily
| on.
|
| [1] https://github.com/ozramos/handsfree/blob/master/LICENSE
| galaxyLogic wrote:
| I don't know what is the remedy here since it seems Google broke
| no laws, did it?
|
| Can you sue someone for "stealing your idea"? Unfortunately this
| is the world we live in. Only thing I can think of is that people
| vote into power parties who are willing to check the power of big
| corporations:
|
| https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2023/09/biden-doj...
| empiko wrote:
| I really do not see what google did wrong here. There should be
| no flag-planting in the open source community. The fact that
| one person develops an idea does not mean that nobody else has
| a right to develop their own version. In this case the authors
| has even deleted all his repositories due to mental stress. It
| makes even more sense for Google to develop their own version
| so that they can be in the control of their project.
| throwmeout123 wrote:
| Open source is unsustainable if we act like this. A 100k
| grant costs a fraction of the latest leetcode wanker member
| of the blind church of tc. Add to it a couple of seniors to
| mentor the dude a couple afternoons a Week and you're
| steering the project without too many problems at lower cost.
|
| "Give back to the community" used to be something I admired
| in the American culture as an European, but I guess most
| exchanged it for a L6 promo
| aaomidi wrote:
| The wrong things is that they actually spent time talking to
| Oz.
|
| It wasn't just a random repository they came across.
|
| Anyway this is why I GPL everything. At least it ensures that
| the changes to it remain free.
| fallat wrote:
| The remedy is Google gives the guy a job or some damn payment.
| "They don't have to" - well no shit, we don't have to be nice
| to each other, yet most of us are. Why can't Google be nice to
| people?
| pvorb wrote:
| They don't have to be nice to people, but it would be better
| if they (still) were _not evil_.
| msm_ wrote:
| Because Google is a corporation, not a person. Even if Google
| decides to be "nice" in this case, this will be for purely
| selfish reasons (they decide good PR they get from paying
| this guy is worth more than whatever they pay). Expecting
| corporations to behave like people is a sure way to get
| disappointed.
| jjnoakes wrote:
| Corporations are made up of people, and people can
| influence the actions of the corporation, if they try.
| yoyohello13 wrote:
| Yeah good luck with that. The founding principal and
| mission of a corporation is to make money at all costs.
| Being "Good" will always come second to making money, the
| individuals who make it up are powerless to stop it.
| jordan_curve wrote:
| Do you have a source for this? As far as I know the
| purpose of corporations is to shield owners from losses
| and not a whole lot beyond that.
| rmbyrro wrote:
| The best way to shield owners is to not form a business
| in the first place.
| lol768 wrote:
| The legal system isn't the only means to a "resolution".
|
| Public shaming can work pretty well too, sometimes.
| toyg wrote:
| Just because something is legal, doesn't mean that it isn't
| utterly immoral.
|
| The Google guy should be ashamed of himself, apologize, and try
| to remedy the injustice he perpetrated - get Oz a job, and/or
| credit him in their work.
| calrain wrote:
| This is a problem with specific people within Google, and
| Google's inability to manage their staff.
|
| Google's Legal department can definitely resolve this problem.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Somebody at the DoJ should reach out to this guy and see if he'd
| be willing to testify.
| matt3210 wrote:
| [flagged]
| rmbyrro wrote:
| Sure, that's why they should steal other people's work without
| any credit or consideration to their morals. Because it's a
| "fiduciary responsibility", this is totally fine.
| archgoon wrote:
| This is a fiction. I'm not sure if it is pushed by corporate
| apologists, or by people trying to convince others the system
| is completely broken and must be destroyed (and replaced with
| system X).
|
| An analysis of this claim:
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co...
|
| In general, corporations are given a large leeway as to what is
| 'in the best interest of the coporation'. Fidiciuary duty
| basically means CEO's just can't run the company into the
| ground and spend all the cash on cocaine parties.
| madrox wrote:
| I'm often skeptical of claims like the one I read here...not this
| time. This is is pretty egregious, and thanks to Professor Levin
| for providing lots of supporting material, making the offense
| even more obvious.
| dinkleberg wrote:
| This is depressing to read.
|
| This is so close to being the amazing story we all want to hear
| about.
|
| A veteran, suffering from PTSD, falls on hard times and ends up
| homeless. Despite his hard situation, he strives to help those
| who are even worse off. He learns how to program and uses these
| skills to build something to improve the lives of those are
| severely disadvantaged. He spends years working on this project
| and ends up building something really cool and useful.
|
| So useful in fact that his dedication pays off and one of the
| biggest software companies in the world is inspired and brings
| him on to scale up this technology to help improve the lives of
| millions.
|
| Except of course that doesn't end up happening. Instead, we're
| left reminded that life can be cruel.
| pickingdinner wrote:
| Ya, F google. But that's what corporations do. I wouldn't expect
| otherwise. But that's also why the PR department could get on
| this and make it right, and profitable (which is always the only
| motivation).
|
| The Honda "random acts of helpfulness" goes a bit too far to be
| tasteful to me, because their acts are so random.
|
| But if an individual could use help, and the situation is related
| to a companies service or product, the business should help, even
| just for PR, especially if they are selling to consumers, whom
| are all individuals.
| Kaibeezy wrote:
| Evil.
| solardev wrote:
| Don't be (caught being) evil.
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