1 post tagged “ip”

After I posted my File_S3 proposal on Wednesday all hell broke loose yesterday. In the process it turned out that the code I originally used to build this class is obviously by Caesar D. Rodas (who also commented on my blog entry) and got pretty upset - I can understand.

Follow the discussion:

• http://www.nabble.com/-PEPr--Proposal-for-File-System%3A%3AS3-tf4949599.html
• http://www.nabble.com/-PEPr--Comment-on-File-System%3A%3AS3-tf4953679.html
  

In the process it became obvious to me that the code I had worked with was Cesar's indeed. It looks like someone downloaded it from the net and removed all copyrights before they handed it over to the company, who then asked me me to fix it up (no offense meant) for them. I know this sounds like a cheap excuse, but that's just how it is, or was.

Last night I managed to get in touch with my project manager at that time, at that company and he strongly believed they (the company) owned all IP on the code and he was even more surprised when I told him about the mess it had gotten myself in. Of course this also blows for them, since they obviously got ripped off in the process.

As always - there is a lot to learn from open source, the number one lesson is, "If you don't have a clean track record of code, don't use it!". Though this is sometimes not as black and white as one would like.

Two thoughts of the moment:

• a search engine for code and fuzzy checksums
• I see why certain companies like CLAs
• ... and a third: I need coffee!