Microsoft Steals Code From Microblogging Startup 315
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."
Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
Troll? Seriously? Has anyone seen the way younger Chinese react to anything even resembling the mildest criticism of China or Chinese people or the Chinese government? Dude! They're pricklier than a porcupine.
This is slashdot. (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
Or has anyone seen the way Americans react to anything even resembling the mildest criticism of USA or it's people or how they try to shove their laws and "freedom" (the fact you cant smoke pot, can get up to 800 years in prison and are fucked over by RIAA really is freedom)?
You can say that about any country in the world.
Comments like the GP did really just make Americans seem more stupid and completely without knowledge about the other countries. Guess what, your government is master in shoving mindsets and specific thinking to its citizens. So much that I'll probably get lots of angry "no it isn't so, we have freedom!" to this reply. It's the true mind controlling.
Why does this kind of stories (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:1, Insightful)
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.
Sort of like "we do not use intelligence agencies to overthrow foreign governments, the terrorists just hate us because of our freedoms" then?
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
Much of the vociferous criticism of the USA and its people comes from other Americans, so it doesn't seem like a particularly apt analogy. I'm admittedly not as familiar with the Chinese blogosphere as with the American one, but are there really Chinese equivalents to, say, DailyKos, that spend extensive time excoriating their own country's culture and government?
WHAT?!?!? (Score:2, Insightful)
Why is anyone surprised? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
It never ceases to amaze me just how holier than thou Americans are vis a vis the Chinese. FD: I've never been to either country. I have, however, traveled extensively, and I know many, many people from both places. I am also familiar with the foreign policy of both nations, and pay attention to news coming out of there and in the world generally.
I think I am in a position to say that the US is in no position to be pointing fingers at other countries,m criticizing their behavior in any respect.
- China has the Great Firewall.
- The US has illegal wiretaps.
- China subjugates Tibet and the Uygur and threatens to annex Taiwan.
- The US subjugates every nation in Latin America, and simply depopulates [wikipedia.org] places that it decides it wants.
- China's police often behave like little more than Jackboot thugs.
- Anyone seen footage from how the authorities handled Katrina? (Unedited footage I mean, not the sanitized stuff for TV).
- China polices its culture pretty closely with state organizations.
- In the US government and the media maintain an ostensible distance, but for all intents and purposes, are one and the same.
Come now. Cut with the "CHINEZE ARE TEH EVILZ!" crap. If you want to point fingers at other nations and go around spreading your brand of Democracy (tm) then make sure you get it right first.
Open Source (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, there's Americans like me who criticize our own. As a matter of fact there's lots of Americans who criticize our own. Usually those of us in the U.S. like to defend or condemn individual issues and yes, like it or leave it is often the answer, but I think you'll find not all of use generalize as much as you are.
I'm with you. We should legalize pot, the RIAA is a bunch of A-Holes that need to get shut down, and yes, our government is way to powerful and sticks its nose where it doesn't belong. One of the biggest fights in this country right now boils down to just that, the ones who think the federal government is to strong and needs to be boiled back down to what it was, and those who want it to get bigger.
I think you, personally, are overgeneralizing the entire populace based on a little bit of what you've seen on TV or some message board rhetoric, I hope not everyone in your country overgeneralizes as much as you do. Granted, I did a bit of generalizing in my original post, but I'm making a projection based on past trends, I have a feeling the denial will happen at first, at least internally, but in the end I think the problem will be cleaned up, not because they're Chinese, but because they're Microsoft.
Oddly enough, I'm a long term Microsoft hater, but I'm starting to like them more and more these days.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
"Cut with the "CHINEZE ARE TEH EVILZ!" crap."
Just because there are multiple evils, doesn't make one of them less evil.
Re:This is slashdot. (Score:5, Insightful)
Poor old Microsoft, getting flamed for STEALING code. Clearly it's Slashdot that deserves the blame for mentioning it.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:2, Insightful)
Americans are pretty much 100% in support of the policies of the Chinese government. That's is why we Americans give their country over 300 billion dollars a year in financial support.
Surely we wouldn't give them so much money if we opposed them??? Right???
Re:Why is anyone surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
People always read too much into events like this. Microsoft is not a monolithic entity where every action is centrally planned and intentional. It's not like Steve Ballmer sat down with managers to figure which startup to rip off or part of the Microsoft induction is Ripoff 101.
What happened is most likely a subcontractor taking a shortcut.
If you want to blame Microsoft, put it down to poor IPR training and lacking due diligence. These are doubly important in developing countries that don't have the same awareness of these issues. I'm not defending Microsoft, but I'm sure code theft is something they genuinely try to avoid. At least where I work open source is an important part of our work and we are trained on how to use it correctly.
Re:As someone who works with outsourced Chinese la (Score:1, Insightful)
Ah the good old "It wasn't me!"-defense. Big corporations are never responsible. It was always somebody else's fault. Good for them.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
America's government is pretty much 100% in support of the policies of the Chinese government. That's is why America gives their country over 300 billion dollars a year in financial support.
Surely we wouldn't give them so much money if we opposed them??? Right???
Fixed that for you.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
No people are so hopelessly enslaved as those who truly believe they are free.
I'm not going to ask what you mean by "free"; I'll just say this: there is essentially no difference between believing you're free and actually being free. Your behavior doesn't change if you go from merely believing you're free to actually being free. (After all, if you believe you're free, you will behave as if you are actually free. In other words, it makes no difference.)
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, while I mostly agree with your post, Guantanamo and the Patriot act have demonstrated that the american government can very well be as bad as the Chinese one, albeit under the terrorist cloak. The scale is different, but the harm done is about the same in quality.
Re:As someone who works with outsourced Chinese la (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Speaking of hypocrisy... (Score:5, Insightful)
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".
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
Texas? California? Or, much better, Hawai'i?
CC.
The people are the culture of the company location (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why does this kind of stories (Score:3, Insightful)
Because filesharers being sued for huge sums of money affects ordinary people; MS infringing on someone else's copyright does not.
Or in other words, the public doesn't care as it doesn't affect them.
Re:The people are the culture of the company locat (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
Comparing the annexation of Tibet with, what? Panama?
Texas? California? Or, much better, Hawai'i?
So wait, if China were to legalize human slavery, you'd be OK with that because the U.S. (and many other countries) did it for a long time?
I think the relevant aphorism is: "two wrongs don't make a right" -- if the U.S. does something bad, then criticize that, but it is not a reason to stop criticizing (e.g.) China.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:1, Insightful)
I am dealing with China on regular basis. It is a developing country where policy, law, power, and so on are things they are figuring out.
Licking up is a national sport of the Chinese.
The Chinese are a promising people with a lot of truly nice individuals. But their extremely limited exposure and education in history, world politics, and the world cultures is a major issue.
The younger people are totally brainwashed if they now anything at all about the world around them. Most have close to no clue. The ones about 50 have a very different and more balanced view. The same over 50s do speak favourably of the same party that made their life a challenge.
"We need the party to guide us" is the common saying among the over 50s I have talked to. This is the same people who know the backside of the modern history of China.
Looking forward to my next trip to the great nation of corruption, lick up, traffic craziness, barging, and delicious feast of the nicest food with friends. A nation of great contrasts.
Most western people tend to forget that most Chinese are living a life in the environment of a developing nation.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll just say this: there is essentially no difference between believing you're free and actually being free. Your behavior doesn't change if you go from merely believing you're free to actually being free
Not quite. There are several ways how that could fail to be true. The easiest is simply that I can convince you that "free" means something more restrictive than the rest of the world considers "free" to be. Just because you (rightly) believe that you're free in that restricted meaning doesn't imply that you'd act the same if you were actually free in the wider meaning.
There's another, more insidious, possibility. Consider this: If someone greatly inconveniences you, you could get them killed. Yet, even if you believed you could get away with it, and that murder would actually be the most efficient way of dealing with the matter, basic human nature would prevent you from actually doing it. You might believe yourself to be free to kill the person "if you really wanted to", but fact of the matter is that you're not, because you'll never "really want to". In comparison, a psychopath is truly free to murder just because it's the easiest way out. So, the question is: what things do people believe they can do, but actively refrain from? Can you manipulate people into creating those limitations on themselves?
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:1, Insightful)
There is no difference to your behaviour, maybe, but there is certainly a difference in the consequences of your actions. If you are not free to do action X but you believe you are, one day you will have a rude awakening.
Who do you think the media is? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:4, Insightful)
[Citation needed ]
And here I thought that the Chinese and some oil-nations propped up the USA economy by buying bonds and treasure bills from the USA.
A year ago USA needed to borrow 2.8 billion USD a day to keep the economy from tanking. The total gross debt of 2008 where 9.98 trillion USD which is 70% of the GDP.
Anyone who thinks that China needs financial support from the USA needs a reality check and to stop listening to biased news.
USA is in deep dodo financially.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:3, Insightful)
No people are so hopelessly enslaved as those who truly believe they are free.
I'm not going to ask what you mean by "free"; I'll just say this: there is essentially no difference between believing you're free and actually being free. Your behavior doesn't change if you go from merely believing you're free to actually being free. (After all, if you believe you're free, you will behave as if you are actually free. In other words, it makes no difference.)
Maybe, but ignorance is bliss too right?
Not even remotely similar (Score:3, Insightful)
- China has the Great Firewall.
- The US has illegal wiretaps.
Tiananmen Square [google.com] vs. Tiananmen Square [google.cn]
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.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:5, Insightful)
Right,
And the evil in this case, since everybody seems to have forgotten, is Microsoft.
Microsoft stole Plurk's design and code. Not the Chinese. Not the Americans.
This business with a long history of unethical behavior and misappropriation is what we should be discussing here, not two nations of very diverse people.
Re:Of course being in China, (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft stole Plurk's design and code. Not the Chinese. Not the Americans.
Nice try. Microsoft outsourced its coding to a Chinese company, THEY stole the source code and design. Quoting from Ars Technica [arstechnica.com]:
The debacle with Juku is an indication that the software giant needs to either stop outsourcing its various small projects (unlikely to happen anytime soon), or come up with a better way to cross-check its code.
This is a CHINESE malaise, not a Microsoft one. Half of the huge Chinese websites out there rely on stealing content [arstechnica.com] and code theft [mashable.com] to launch. Blaming Microsoft because they are the largest target is trendy, but misleading.