Plurk Overplaying Hand After Microsoft Code Copying; Meanwhile Status.net Says 'Take Our Code, Please'

from the take-the-publicity-and-go-with-it dept

Thu, Dec 17th 2009 2:08pm — Mike Masnick

Lots of people got a good ironic laugh from the news that Microsoft, which has repeatedly complained about "piracy" in China, got caught blatantly copying code from a small startup named Plurk. Microsoft blamed a vendor and shut down the service. Plurk, for its part, got a ton of free publicity, and apparently it doesn't want to give it up. It's sent out a statement to lots of media folks (and us) with absolutely nothing of substance, but which says that the company is still considering legal action, while going on and on about how its just a small company that can't even afford sales people or a marketing person to write this email. And yet, it thinks it wants to distract itself with a lawsuit against Microsoft? If it can't afford sales people, those lawyers might be a bit costly. Yes, Microsoft copied your code. Time to use that to your advantage, and whining about the legal action you might take doesn't get anyone else to actually care about your product.

Meanwhile, another provider of similar software (though open sourced), Status.net took a smarter approach. Blaise points out that Status.net put up a blog post telling Microsoft to go right ahead and take its code. After all, it's open source (and they have a Chinese translation already). That's what you're supposed to do.

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Filed Under: china, code, copying
Companies: microsoft, plurk, status.net

11 Comments

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aguywhoneedstenbucks (profile), 17 Dec 2009 @ 2:06pm

It's a ploy to get a larger settlement. They can't be that stupid.
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Kazi, 17 Dec 2009 @ 2:11pm

Re:
One has to wonder who's more stupid

Aguy
Microsoft
Status.net
Me

I mean,everyone has a point without any evidence.
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Dark Helmet (profile), 17 Dec 2009 @ 2:19pm

And...
Cue an Angry Dude rant complete with accusations of Mike being in bed with Microsoft in 5...4...3...2..1...
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Microsoft, 17 Dec 2009 @ 2:24pm

It's overhyped anyway and works a lot like twitter. why would we want to be on the twittscape? its pathetic PATHETIC!
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Will (profile), 17 Dec 2009 @ 3:46pm

Code every actually unique?
I'm not that experienced in the industry, but what I have learned is that almost every bit of code ever to be written has most likely already been written in some very similar form. The only unique part of it is combining different pieces into something that is mostly unique. I don't understand how anyone can claim copyright on code when the code used probably contained many pieces of code that the programmers got from the internet or have saved from old projects (like really useful functions) that may again also be copyrighted.

Is there anyone who can explain this to me? Like why it makes any sense at all to be able to copyright code?
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Ptchaw, 17 Dec 2009 @ 4:22pm

Re: Code every actually unique?
Its an interesting idea, although you could also say...

"almost every sentence ever to be written has most likely already been written in some very similar form. The only unique part of it is combining different sentences into something that is mostly unique"
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2009 @ 4:32pm

Re: Re:
Me.
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Robert Ring (profile), 17 Dec 2009 @ 5:45pm

Plurk, here's a marketing idea:

Put out advertisements explaining that your code is so awesome that Microsoft tried outright stealing it.

Problem solved.
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Will (profile), 17 Dec 2009 @ 8:31pm

Re: Re: Code every actually unique?
The difference is when your actually creating the work. When writing something, exactly what you say isn't always as important is what the message you are trying to convey.

But when programming, you run into something you need your program to do, maybe it is sort 2 lists of words into one that is alphabetized. To do this part of your program you could either create the code from scratch or just search google and probably find either exactly what you need or something every close.

I feel like that is a major difference between the two. One can create an amazing program with close they only copied from the internet and a few minor fixes. But for a book or a paper to be written you need more then just sentences copied.
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Anonymous Coward, 17 Dec 2009 @ 11:57pm

Re: Re: Re:
Yes, I believe you :P
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Ganesh Ranganathan, 1 Jan 2010 @ 12:34pm

I dont think they will sue Microsoft, who has probably an army of high paid lawyers from years of antitrust legislation.

But what better way of getting publicity than having your code copied by the biggest IT company in the world? :)
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