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Before anybody blows this out of proportion... I've used Three20 a ton, and actually build my Hacker News iPhone app using it.[1] I've used the drag-to-refresh

by grinich 16y ago

Before anybody blows this out of proportion... I've used Three20 a ton, and actually build my Hacker News iPhone app using it.[1] I've used the drag-to-refresh header a bunch. This code was added to the Three20 framework months ago via somebody on GitHub. One pull request, and it was in the main repo. The project is currently maintained by Jeff Verkoeyen, a full-time student. Three20 makes use of a ton of other open-source projects (JSON parser, etc.). Whoever submitted this code just didn't add any attribution. When Facebook updated their app, it was probably only 2-3 lines to add. And since it's been in the codebase for months now, and a bunch of other apps use it, they probably figured it was no problem. Although flaming blog posts feel good to write, a much more constructive action would be to call up Facebook and talk to them. Or email Jeff. Or post to the Three20 Google Group (almost 1k people). Or submit an issue on GitHub. Or anything really. Not to mention the fact that they stole it from Loren Bricher (Tweetie) in the first place... [1] http://michaelgrinich.com/hackernews http://michaelgrinich.com/hackernews

JMiao 16y ago
agree that it would've been wiser to contact jeff directly before the press-friendly call out. jeff is straightforward, and this looks like an honest mistake.
mtigas 16y ago
Initial commit: http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/0edd0ca58bf3b352e7ab4b001c3470a8c1b70ae5 http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/0edd0ca58bf3b352e7... jverkoey looks to have implemented this himself. Actually, looking back through the network graph (http://github.com/facebook/three20/network http://github.com/facebook/three20/network) and commit log (http://github.com/facebook/three20/commits/master http://github.com/facebook/three20/commits/master) there really aren't ANY credits regarding merged-in patches or other contributions.
- mtigas 16y ago
  I take that back: There are rare commits such as http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/807dbda1c8cb85f09b98767de67ca7d7454b4fbf http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/807dbda1c8cb85f09b... which explicitly credit an author for the patch. <del>I hate to say it, but the current system (i.e. all commits through jverkoey) has the major drawback of putting code accountability in nobody's hands but Joey's.</del> --- Rescinded: http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/CHANGES#L93 http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/CHANGES#L93
  - uxp 16y ago
    It's nothing more than Jeff Verkoeyen being the gatekeeper for the project's repo, the same way a tightly controlled SVN repo might be. He's supposed to review every line of code that goes into it, and the commit it himself. But everyone knows thats a daunting task, and theres no reason to review a simple thing like this to question where it originally came from. Right? Git is awesome, because it helps prevent these situations, but it's only a tool. Different people will use it differently, and based on the comments of the blog post, once he found out that it was copyrighted code, he rectified the problem. http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/204673eea141acf4ee5f05402db6051dafcc8b17 http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/204673eea141acf4ee... I'm not trying to pass blame, but I do believe that jverkoey never had the intention of stealing this code. None the less, Facebook.app ended up on the sour end of a situation they could have solved months ago, but they had no idea there was a problem until now.
16s 16y ago
Flaming blog? It seemed pretty tame to me. The worst thing he said was "not cool" and just asked to be credited for the work that's far from flaming. No threats, cursing, or ranting at all.

by grinich 16y ago

JMiao 16y ago

agree that it would've been wiser to contact jeff directly before the press-friendly call out. jeff is straightforward, and this looks like an honest mistake.

mtigas 16y ago

Initial commit: http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/0edd0ca58bf3b352e7ab4b001c3470a8c1b70ae5 http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/0edd0ca58bf3b352e7... jverkoey looks to have implemented this himself. Actually, looking back through the network graph (http://github.com/facebook/three20/network http://github.com/facebook/three20/network) and commit log (http://github.com/facebook/three20/commits/master http://github.com/facebook/three20/commits/master) there really aren't ANY credits regarding merged-in patches or other contributions.

mtigas 16y ago
I take that back: There are rare commits such as http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/807dbda1c8cb85f09b98767de67ca7d7454b4fbf http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/807dbda1c8cb85f09b... which explicitly credit an author for the patch. <del>I hate to say it, but the current system (i.e. all commits through jverkoey) has the major drawback of putting code accountability in nobody's hands but Joey's.</del> --- Rescinded: http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/CHANGES#L93 http://github.com/facebook/three20/blob/master/CHANGES#L93
- uxp 16y ago
  It's nothing more than Jeff Verkoeyen being the gatekeeper for the project's repo, the same way a tightly controlled SVN repo might be. He's supposed to review every line of code that goes into it, and the commit it himself. But everyone knows thats a daunting task, and theres no reason to review a simple thing like this to question where it originally came from. Right? Git is awesome, because it helps prevent these situations, but it's only a tool. Different people will use it differently, and based on the comments of the blog post, once he found out that it was copyrighted code, he rectified the problem. http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/204673eea141acf4ee5f05402db6051dafcc8b17 http://github.com/facebook/three20/commit/204673eea141acf4ee... I'm not trying to pass blame, but I do believe that jverkoey never had the intention of stealing this code. None the less, Facebook.app ended up on the sour end of a situation they could have solved months ago, but they had no idea there was a problem until now.

16s 16y ago

Flaming blog? It seemed pretty tame to me. The worst thing he said was "not cool" and just asked to be credited for the work that's far from flaming. No threats, cursing, or ranting at all.