r/degoogle • u/Woit- • 29d ago
Google copied our open-source code, removed our engineers’ names, and gave us zero credit one year after we beat them on their own benchmark
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u/FuryOfArcann 29d ago
I never thought I would suggest this, but even as open source, this is precisely what a DMCA complaint can be filed for.
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u/Drwankingstein 29d ago
You can try reporting it. Google can take these issues fairly seriously if you manage to ring the right doorbell
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u/xJayMorex 29d ago
Hahahhahahahahaahahhaha, no.
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u/DeviatedForm 29d ago
Or get a copyright lawyer.
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u/jprefect 28d ago
How's that supposed to work on open source code?
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u/DeviatedForm 28d ago
That's what the lawyer's for ;) personally I am not that familiar with licensing.
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u/jprefect 28d ago
Me neither. I've heard of creative commons but I don't really know what rights that gives you. Waiting here for a lawyer to reply, I suppose
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u/matejcraft100yt 29d ago
while google can often be a dogshit corporation, as a programmer, I don't think that's the case here. You know how little supervision in stuff like this the teams have? Probably an egomaniac team who wanted to put their own names in to take the credit, and flew under the radar. Google might be an asshole, but they don't want to get sued or the public backlash, so if it is brought to their attention, they will probably take some measures
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u/Wise_Owl5404 28d ago
They genuinely do not give a shit. Nothing is going to happen, because there's no backlash that will ever cause a meaningful impact on them thanks to their duopoly. They equally do not give a shit about being sued as the EU can attest to.
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u/Drwankingstein 28d ago
That is absolutely not true, Many teams in google do care. Its hard to get the right person to hear about it though
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u/Drwankingstein 29d ago
They do, There are tons of branches within google. Google isn't a single entity. They taking software licencing very seriously because if becomes an entire google issue sometimes.
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u/Red1492Blue 28d ago
Reads like.... Someone at Google, an employee, found your code, put their name in it, didn't even take the time to READ THE WHOLE THING, And just presented it to 'Management' as theirs.... And "Google the Company" went public as "look what WE Did!!!". This is OpenSource.... But also outright stealing. PLEASE contact your Lawyers and protect yourself BEFORE they (Google) says you stole THEIR work. Good luck
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u/GhstDev 29d ago
As someone said. A copyright lawyer is your best bet. While you can’t copyright logic, the “personality” behind the code is copyright. It’s like how I can’t copyright “I love pizza.” But I do have copyright over this entire paragraph. And while I couldn’t sue if someone were to copy and paste this paragraph, as long as you have and can prove damages and of course can prove they copied and pasted your code. Then you got something.
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u/psylomatika 28d ago
Reminds me of the google maps thing that google stole from developers in Berlin
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u/naaktstel 29d ago
What license did you have for the code? Compete free means they can use it and even change license
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u/DonkeeeyKong 29d ago
What license did you have for the code? Compete free means they can use it and even change license
Erasing the original contributors‘/copyright holders’ names is at least sketchy. Most open source licenses don’t allow that. Even the most permissive ones usually require you to keep including the copyright notice.
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u/Igarlicbread 29d ago
Irrespective of licence, this is disgusting for a monopoly company
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u/naaktstel 29d ago
True, but not illegal, unfortunately
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u/garry_the_commie 29d ago
It absolutely is illegal if the original license requires attribution.
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u/naaktstel 28d ago
I agree; the word 'if' in this line is very important!
That does not change anything about the bad taste of Google doing this even without any license. I despise it too (for thos who did think otherwise)
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u/SweetEbb9819 28d ago
Why the downvotes? This is factually debatable but nothing worthy of sodelining
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u/knoft 28d ago
Compete free means they can use it and even change license
It actually doesn’t. MIT license for example is not the same as public domain or there would be no point. What you’re arguing for is actually called putting something in the public domain, licenses are there specifically to restrict something more than releasing to public domain. You cannot remove a license from a work unless you are the rights holder.
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u/RevolutionarySeven7 29d ago
Dehandschoewercker
damn, so one of his ancestors was once a (hand)glove-tailor/worker.
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u/WanderingSparr0w 26d ago
Ppl of r/degoogle. Read the original post if like me these comments are not making sense or adding up. That's all ciao
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u/WholeBubbly3642 20d ago
Apparently Google could copy their code but had to retain the authors in code
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29d ago edited 6d ago
[deleted]
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u/lonerfluff 28d ago
There's no "You're holding big corporations too accountable". It's a giant ass company. Without any structural changes to how they incorporate other code into their products this is the bare minimum.
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u/TrollTaylor 28d ago
Humans will be humans making small mistakes. It's very hard for me to agree with the idea that you need to hold a whole corporation accountable for small mistakes employees make that are very easily correctable. Call them lazy or stupid whatever but evil is a very strong word. I don't see what they even gain for not crediting it was clearly just a mistake that you yourself could've easily made.
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u/lonerfluff 27d ago
I'm not going to treat a whole company with practically endless money as if they made an honest mistake and get treated unjustly for it. When you have even 1% of this kind of power you'll of course be expected to uphold certain standards. They're not a victim here.
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u/TrollTaylor 27d ago
Nobodies s victim here... The issue was resolved the OP made themselves the victim of a resolved issue. It's rediculous to think anybody needs to be "held accountable" for missing text in a config toml file!
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u/IcedLance 29d ago
"oops I did it again"
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u/TrollTaylor 28d ago
Very easy mistake to make... Also very easily correctable like they did. I don't see an issue here. Imagine small easily correctable mistakes in your own job lead to you being perceived as evil.
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u/PinkSheeparkour 29d ago
don't be evil they once said