21 ms·

Instead of collaborating or supporting me, Google stole my idea

547 points by FloatArtifact 3y ago

loky4i4 3y ago
I don't get how people with knowledge like that are homeless, like find any IT job you will have above average salary, and at least you can pay rent then
madrox 3y ago
I'm often skeptical of claims like the one I read here...not this time. This is is pretty egregious, and thanks to Professor Levin for providing lots of supporting material, making the offense even more obvious.
- lmoroney 3y ago
  Professor Levin is welcome to contact me, if he wants to learn the truth.
KETpXDDzR 3y ago
The Simpsons had it: https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE
lmoroney 3y ago
I would like to take a moment to address claims that Project Gameface was inspired by anything other than the incredible story of Lance Carr. As we’ve mentioned in previously shared documentation, Project Gameface was the direct output of Lance’s experience and a desire to make the world of computing even more accessible. When Oz approached me, I was already working on what would become Project Gameface, and had a specific technical problem that I was trying to solve. Oz showed me his impressive demo, and we chatted briefly about the problem I was having. Unfortunately Handsfree.js could not solve it, and thus I didn't use Handsfree.js in any capacity. As I mentioned to Oz when we spoke, I wish him the best with his open source work. Finding new ways to make computing more accessible is an important space that I hope many projects are successful in.
steeve 3y ago
That was a lot darker than I thought it would be. Google should absolutely respond. As for Oz, what an incredible story.
- klipklop 3y ago
  Agreed, the story is so wild it’s hard to believe at first.
- metadat 3y ago
  And no reply from Elgoog since this was posted back in May, now more than 4 months ago. "Disappointing" would be an understatement.
  - lmoroney 3y ago
    I wasn't made aware of it until the HackerNews posting, and I was on vacation then. I'm back now, and I posted a statement above.
- paul7986 3y ago
  Google is known for doing this as seen in this other HN post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 As well I met them and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was a decade ago around the same time Sonos met with them and they did similar to Sonos. Though Sonos recently won their case against them https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-patent-itc-ruling-decision-import-ban https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-pate....
  - rmbyrro 3y ago
    > Though Sonos recently won their case against them Ouch. That one hurt. Google is looking worse every day. Is it going to be "the Yahoo of tomorrow?"
    - photon_lines 3y ago
      Yes
DiabloD3 3y ago
Somebody at the DoJ should reach out to this guy and see if he'd be willing to testify.
- sneak 3y ago
  Testify for what? Ideas aren't IP. His license is permissive. He literally gave his idea away to the world for free. How did anything Google did harm this guy in any way?
matt3210 3y ago
[flagged]
- archgoon 3y ago
  This is a fiction. I'm not sure if it is pushed by corporate apologists, or by people trying to convince others the system is completely broken and must be destroyed (and replaced with system X). An analysis of this claim: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co... In general, corporations are given a large leeway as to what is 'in the best interest of the coporation'. Fidiciuary duty basically means CEO's just can't run the company into the ground and spend all the cash on cocaine parties.
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  Sure, that's why they should steal other people's work without any credit or consideration to their morals. Because it's a "fiduciary responsibility", this is totally fine.
Kaibeezy 3y ago
Evil.
solardev 3y ago
Don't be (caught being) evil.
- abrookewood 3y ago
  Google have fallen from a company I used to admire, to something grubby and untrustworthy.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - solardev 3y ago
    That's just the nature of capitalism, isn't it? I don't think any company stays good once they get big enough. Maybe the B Corps and co-ops stand a chance...
athorax 3y ago
"be evil whenever possible" - Google, maybe (probably)
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
lainga 3y ago
I'd like to hear the other side of the story from the GOOG employee who has been mentioned in the issue [] [] https://github.com/lmoroney https://github.com/lmoroney ed. not GOOG user, employee, but GH user, you know...
- gman83 3y ago
  It seems like this guy has nothing to do with this project? I mean, he could have told other Googler's about this idea, but maybe it's just a coincidence?
  - lainga 3y ago
    Based on a sibling comment I thought he might have merely collected information about Mr Oz's project, in a DevRel role, and someone else gotten hold of it. But IANAL and IANAJ, I just thought that since he's been mentioned he'd like to speak for himself. Esp. considering what some of the sibling comments are saying.
  - CSN3RD 3y ago
    He was one of two authors announcing the project on Google's blog. https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface/ https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface/
    - gman83 3y ago
      Ohh wow, that's pretty damning then.
      - lmoroney 3y ago
        Please see my statement above. I started this project long before I met Oz. And when I met Oz, I had a very specific technical requirement that I hoped his library could fix, and then we could lift up his library as a solution instead of building our own. Unfortunately it could not, and at that point the discussion ended.
swader999 3y ago
They should just be good about this but I guess that isn't their motto. And I tend not to believe articles like this.
rg111 3y ago
I am here to say something tangential. I found that deeplearning.ai and GoogleX in edX had some MOOCs where the person who is facing the allegation was an instructor. After some minutes, I found the person to be average, and not really up to my expectations as an instructor in AI. The rigor of those MOOCs were quite low, too. Digging up, I found that he was an "AI Advocate" at Google, which is just devrel. He is not a full-fledged developer or a scientist or research engineer. Of course, I didn't finish or purchase those MOOCs.
- kristjansson 3y ago
  I think this is useful context and deserves fewer downvotes than it currently has.
- jonhen 3y ago
  [dead]
ingenieroariel 3y ago
I have a lot of respect for Oz's ability to ship and skills / imagination. Only thing I can think of is for people to think thoroughly the license they set. BSD in this case, 4 years ago. And to not take any contributions unless they sign a CLA so the license can be changed in the future. As for my own point of view, I screen apps/libraries that are not MIT/BSD/Apache2 and I may want to link statically to or sell services for and try to sponsor on Github projects I rely heavily on. [1] https://github.com/ozramos/handsfree/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/ozramos/handsfree/blob/master/LICENSE
galaxyLogic 3y ago
I don't know what is the remedy here since it seems Google broke no laws, did it? Can you sue someone for "stealing your idea"? Unfortunately this is the world we live in. Only thing I can think of is that people vote into power parties who are willing to check the power of big corporations: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2023/09/biden-doj-google-00114865 https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2023/09/biden-doj...
- fallat 3y ago
  The remedy is Google gives the guy a job or some damn payment. "They don't have to" - well no shit, we don't have to be nice to each other, yet most of us are. Why can't Google be nice to people?
  - msm_ 3y ago
    Because Google is a corporation, not a person. Even if Google decides to be "nice" in this case, this will be for purely selfish reasons (they decide good PR they get from paying this guy is worth more than whatever they pay). Expecting corporations to behave like people is a sure way to get disappointed.
    - jjnoakes 3y ago
      Corporations are made up of people, and people can influence the actions of the corporation, if they try.
      - yoyohello13 3y ago
        Yeah good luck with that. The founding principal and mission of a corporation is to make money at all costs. Being "Good" will always come second to making money, the individuals who make it up are powerless to stop it.
        jordan_curve 3y ago
        Do you have a source for this? As far as I know the purpose of corporations is to shield owners from losses and not a whole lot beyond that.
calrain 3y ago
This is a problem with specific people within Google, and Google's inability to manage their staff. Google's Legal department can definitely resolve this problem.
- solardev 3y ago
  They're probably just hoping it'd blow over if they ignore/bury it. Google's not exactly known for being good at responding to anyone...
pickingdinner 3y ago
Ya, F google. But that's what corporations do. I wouldn't expect otherwise. But that's also why the PR department could get on this and make it right, and profitable (which is always the only motivation). The Honda "random acts of helpfulness" goes a bit too far to be tasteful to me, because their acts are so random. But if an individual could use help, and the situation is related to a companies service or product, the business should help, even just for PR, especially if they are selling to consumers, whom are all individuals.
pedalpete 3y ago
The first things that come to mind are 1) why would Google steal this instead of bringing Oz onto the team, which assumes he wanted to work for Google) 2) what can we as a community do to support Oz . Oz, if you're reading this, you're obviously a very capable person, how do you think we can support you. Not just in relation to MidiBlocks, but beyond. That is just one project, I'm sure you've got more in you, if you want to pursue other things.
- lmoroney 3y ago
  It wasn't stolen. See my above statement. We supported Oz in the ways that we could.
- romanhn 3y ago
  With a big company like Google you can't just randomly hire someone without putting them through the rigorous interview process that can be months long (been there, done that), accomplishments or not (see the Homebrew dude).
  - rmbyrro 3y ago
    They have thousands of contractors and consultants that don't go through this process. That's not a valid reason.
  - dappermanneke 3y ago
    of course not, you have to acquire their LLC to let them skip the interview process. so building stuff does count, but only if done commercially
    - romanhn 3y ago
      FYI, it is incredibly common to subject acquihired employees to the same interviews, and extend offers only to those that pass. This is especially true at FAANG.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
    So if John Carmack, Guido, Rich Hickey, Donald Knuth wanted a job, they would first have to leet code like everyone else? The reason the failure to invert a binary tree story was notable was because the dude invented Homebrew. He was supposed to enter though the back door, but someone screwed up and made him go through the regular mechanism.
chaps 3y ago
Oz, if you're reading this -- is there anything we can do to support you and your work?
dinkleberg 3y ago
This is depressing to read. This is so close to being the amazing story we all want to hear about. A veteran, suffering from PTSD, falls on hard times and ends up homeless. Despite his hard situation, he strives to help those who are even worse off. He learns how to program and uses these skills to build something to improve the lives of those are severely disadvantaged. He spends years working on this project and ends up building something really cool and useful. So useful in fact that his dedication pays off and one of the biggest software companies in the world is inspired and brings him on to scale up this technology to help improve the lives of millions. Except of course that doesn't end up happening. Instead, we're left reminded that life can be cruel.
- rpbo 3y ago
  [dead]
- rootkea 3y ago
  > life can be cruel. We can be more specific here. "Some people can be cruel". (Of course, I'm talking about the one who took all the notes from Oz then instead of giving him the credits ghosted him completely and later co-authored the blog post announcing the "inspired" project. https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface)
  - paul7986 3y ago
    Ummm it's not the employee it's Google and it's culture of thievery as it ... - Copied iOS and created Android - Worked with Sonos then stole from Sonos; Sonos 10 years later wins a victory in court https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/26/23739273/google-sonos-smart-speaker-patent-lawsuit-ruling https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/26/23739273/google-sonos-sma... - To inviting a MIT student out for an interview who demoed her tech & they patented it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 To many other examples ... it's not the employees it's the company!
    - doloputer 3y ago
dappermanneke 3y ago
sounds like this dude got caught in someone’s promo packet assembly. i wouldn’t worry too much if i were him. this’ll be deprecated in three years or so once it served its purpose to signal how good of an engineer the person who made it as part of their promo package is
lololololllolll 3y ago
[dead]
rpbo 3y ago
[dead]
somsak2 3y ago
would highly recommend Oz look for some mental health resources. nowadays there's plenty of self-study online, no insurance or expensive therapist needed. wishing him best of luck.
anuraaga 3y ago
It's interesting how even before this has taken hold on HN the repo was already basically dead https://github.com/google/project-gameface/pull/31#issuecomment-1683443314 https://github.com/google/project-gameface/pull/31#issuecomm... More interesting is not having the "This is not an official Google project so not supported" disclaimer so many repos in their org has. Shady origins, shoddy maintenance, but the incident will be forgotten as is usually the case. The reality is Google still has huge mindshare and respect among engineers and will likely be immune to damage in these situations.
- lmoroney 3y ago
  That's really sad. We wanted GameFace to be something that we kickstarted and then donated to the community to run with. That's still the case.
  - FloatArtifact 3y ago
    I would like to respect Oz decision to close the issue and his desire to see gameface succeed. For those that are uninformed please read the issue. Imoroney what can we do as a community? This project is still in need of a measure of Google support to be handed off to the community. The project needs fostering to develop community lead maintainers. This project could be useful as a library, not just as a front end. Accessibility must scale to its users needs. For instance, integrating with speech recognition, eye tracking, and other peripherals allows people to have the most interaction with their environment. I for one would love to work on hooking into gameface with C#, python for integration alongside grammar based speech recognition.
    - lmoroney 3y ago
      I won't claim any expertise in the licensing side of things -- but there's a fully working product there that people can take a run with. If you want to build a business on it and thus grow this, AFAIK, the Apache 2.0 license permits that. That was always my goal with this -- my team is not in the business of product development. Still, there was (and is) an opportunity to build the basis for an app that the community could either maintain or an entrepreneur could use. Either way, if it spreads the tech far and wide to help more people like Lance, we all win.
redog 3y ago
[flagged]
Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]
nojvek 3y ago
Playing Evil’s advocate for google Google has abandoned a ton of projects, and this repo kind of looks abandoned. It’s likely google loses interest in it like they have a deserved reputation. Google has no obligation to pay anyone other than their employees and vendors. If Oz doesn’t like what google is doing, he can continue on his own repo right?
malepoon2 3y ago
For what it's worth, here's what Moroney is saying: "I’m out on vacation right now, and will respond when I get back. But these allegations are completely untrue, and massively distressing to me, and to others." https://twitter.com/lmoroney/status/1702695501542597080 https://twitter.com/lmoroney/status/1702695501542597080 How convenient he's on vacation right now. Why didn't he respond sooner if it's all untrue? (Also why am I not surprised to see this guy paid for a blue check...)
- lmoroney 3y ago
  It is the truth that I was out on vacation at that time, and largely incommunicado, or at least I was supposed to be until these false allegations arose. It is the truth that it was, and continues to be, massively distressing to me to be falsely accused like this. It is the truth that I paid (out of my own pocket) for a blue check, because in the new Twitter that gets me 10x engagement, and I've always used my platform to enable and lift up others. That's what makes these accusations, and the follow-on abuse and attacks over email and otherwise so distressing. I'm standing by those truths.
- derangedHorse 3y ago
  Yeah I don’t understand how he gets tagged on an issue thread like that and doesn’t say anything until it reached enough eyes. Definitely seems suspicious. He also could have easily pointed out some specifics instead of just saying it’s untrue and saying he’ll get back to it after vacation.
  - lmoroney 3y ago
    I wasn't 'tagged' on a thread, and I didn't learn about it until it was posted on here.
- RGBCube 3y ago
  What's wrong with paying for a blue check?
lmoroney 3y ago
If you are coming to this thread, please go back to the GitHub thread that it is linked to, and see updated statements from Oz, including an apology for accusing me of stealing his idea.

547 points by FloatArtifact 3y ago

I don't get how people with knowledge like that are homeless, like find any IT job you will have above average salary, and at least you can pay rent then

madrox 3y ago

I'm often skeptical of claims like the one I read here...not this time. This is is pretty egregious, and thanks to Professor Levin for providing lots of supporting material, making the offense even more obvious.

lmoroney 3y ago
Professor Levin is welcome to contact me, if he wants to learn the truth.

KETpXDDzR 3y ago

The Simpsons had it: https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE https://youtu.be/H27rfr59RiE

lmoroney 3y ago

I would like to take a moment to address claims that Project Gameface was inspired by anything other than the incredible story of Lance Carr. As we’ve mentioned in previously shared documentation, Project Gameface was the direct output of Lance’s experience and a desire to make the world of computing even more accessible. When Oz approached me, I was already working on what would become Project Gameface, and had a specific technical problem that I was trying to solve. Oz showed me his impressive demo, and we chatted briefly about the problem I was having. Unfortunately Handsfree.js could not solve it, and thus I didn't use Handsfree.js in any capacity. As I mentioned to Oz when we spoke, I wish him the best with his open source work. Finding new ways to make computing more accessible is an important space that I hope many projects are successful in.

steeve 3y ago

That was a lot darker than I thought it would be. Google should absolutely respond. As for Oz, what an incredible story.

klipklop 3y ago
Agreed, the story is so wild it’s hard to believe at first.
metadat 3y ago
And no reply from Elgoog since this was posted back in May, now more than 4 months ago. "Disappointing" would be an understatement.
- lmoroney 3y ago
  I wasn't made aware of it until the HackerNews posting, and I was on vacation then. I'm back now, and I posted a statement above.
paul7986 3y ago
Google is known for doing this as seen in this other HN post https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 As well I met them and it wasn't a pleasant experience. It was a decade ago around the same time Sonos met with them and they did similar to Sonos. Though Sonos recently won their case against them https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-patent-itc-ruling-decision-import-ban https://www.theverge.com/2022/1/6/22871121/sonos-google-pate....
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  > Though Sonos recently won their case against them Ouch. That one hurt. Google is looking worse every day. Is it going to be "the Yahoo of tomorrow?"
  - photon_lines 3y ago
    Yes

DiabloD3 3y ago

Somebody at the DoJ should reach out to this guy and see if he'd be willing to testify.

sneak 3y ago
Testify for what? Ideas aren't IP. His license is permissive. He literally gave his idea away to the world for free. How did anything Google did harm this guy in any way?

matt3210 3y ago

[flagged]

archgoon 3y ago
This is a fiction. I'm not sure if it is pushed by corporate apologists, or by people trying to convince others the system is completely broken and must be destroyed (and replaced with system X). An analysis of this claim: https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-corporations-obligations-to-shareholders/corporations-dont-have-to-maximize-profits https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2015/04/16/what-are-co... In general, corporations are given a large leeway as to what is 'in the best interest of the coporation'. Fidiciuary duty basically means CEO's just can't run the company into the ground and spend all the cash on cocaine parties.
rmbyrro 3y ago
Sure, that's why they should steal other people's work without any credit or consideration to their morals. Because it's a "fiduciary responsibility", this is totally fine.

Kaibeezy 3y ago

Evil.

solardev 3y ago

Don't be (caught being) evil.

abrookewood 3y ago
Google have fallen from a company I used to admire, to something grubby and untrustworthy.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- solardev 3y ago
  That's just the nature of capitalism, isn't it? I don't think any company stays good once they get big enough. Maybe the B Corps and co-ops stand a chance...

athorax 3y ago

"be evil whenever possible" - Google, maybe (probably)

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

lainga 3y ago

I'd like to hear the other side of the story from the GOOG employee who has been mentioned in the issue [] [] https://github.com/lmoroney https://github.com/lmoroney ed. not GOOG user, employee, but GH user, you know...

gman83 3y ago
It seems like this guy has nothing to do with this project? I mean, he could have told other Googler's about this idea, but maybe it's just a coincidence?
- lainga 3y ago
  Based on a sibling comment I thought he might have merely collected information about Mr Oz's project, in a DevRel role, and someone else gotten hold of it. But IANAL and IANAJ, I just thought that since he's been mentioned he'd like to speak for himself. Esp. considering what some of the sibling comments are saying.
- CSN3RD 3y ago
  He was one of two authors announcing the project on Google's blog. https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface/ https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface/
  - gman83 3y ago
    Ohh wow, that's pretty damning then.
    - lmoroney 3y ago
      Please see my statement above. I started this project long before I met Oz. And when I met Oz, I had a very specific technical requirement that I hoped his library could fix, and then we could lift up his library as a solution instead of building our own. Unfortunately it could not, and at that point the discussion ended.

swader999 3y ago

They should just be good about this but I guess that isn't their motto. And I tend not to believe articles like this.

rg111 3y ago

I am here to say something tangential. I found that deeplearning.ai and GoogleX in edX had some MOOCs where the person who is facing the allegation was an instructor. After some minutes, I found the person to be average, and not really up to my expectations as an instructor in AI. The rigor of those MOOCs were quite low, too. Digging up, I found that he was an "AI Advocate" at Google, which is just devrel. He is not a full-fledged developer or a scientist or research engineer. Of course, I didn't finish or purchase those MOOCs.

kristjansson 3y ago
I think this is useful context and deserves fewer downvotes than it currently has.
jonhen 3y ago
[dead]

ingenieroariel 3y ago

I have a lot of respect for Oz's ability to ship and skills / imagination. Only thing I can think of is for people to think thoroughly the license they set. BSD in this case, 4 years ago. And to not take any contributions unless they sign a CLA so the license can be changed in the future. As for my own point of view, I screen apps/libraries that are not MIT/BSD/Apache2 and I may want to link statically to or sell services for and try to sponsor on Github projects I rely heavily on. [1] https://github.com/ozramos/handsfree/blob/master/LICENSE https://github.com/ozramos/handsfree/blob/master/LICENSE

galaxyLogic 3y ago

I don't know what is the remedy here since it seems Google broke no laws, did it? Can you sue someone for "stealing your idea"? Unfortunately this is the world we live in. Only thing I can think of is that people vote into power parties who are willing to check the power of big corporations: https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2023/09/biden-doj-google-00114865 https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2023/09/biden-doj...

fallat 3y ago
The remedy is Google gives the guy a job or some damn payment. "They don't have to" - well no shit, we don't have to be nice to each other, yet most of us are. Why can't Google be nice to people?
- msm_ 3y ago
  Because Google is a corporation, not a person. Even if Google decides to be "nice" in this case, this will be for purely selfish reasons (they decide good PR they get from paying this guy is worth more than whatever they pay). Expecting corporations to behave like people is a sure way to get disappointed.
  - jjnoakes 3y ago
    Corporations are made up of people, and people can influence the actions of the corporation, if they try.
    - yoyohello13 3y ago
      Yeah good luck with that. The founding principal and mission of a corporation is to make money at all costs. Being "Good" will always come second to making money, the individuals who make it up are powerless to stop it.
      - jordan_curve 3y ago
        Do you have a source for this? As far as I know the purpose of corporations is to shield owners from losses and not a whole lot beyond that.

calrain 3y ago

This is a problem with specific people within Google, and Google's inability to manage their staff. Google's Legal department can definitely resolve this problem.

solardev 3y ago
They're probably just hoping it'd blow over if they ignore/bury it. Google's not exactly known for being good at responding to anyone...

pickingdinner 3y ago

Ya, F google. But that's what corporations do. I wouldn't expect otherwise. But that's also why the PR department could get on this and make it right, and profitable (which is always the only motivation). The Honda "random acts of helpfulness" goes a bit too far to be tasteful to me, because their acts are so random. But if an individual could use help, and the situation is related to a companies service or product, the business should help, even just for PR, especially if they are selling to consumers, whom are all individuals.

pedalpete 3y ago

The first things that come to mind are 1) why would Google steal this instead of bringing Oz onto the team, which assumes he wanted to work for Google) 2) what can we as a community do to support Oz . Oz, if you're reading this, you're obviously a very capable person, how do you think we can support you. Not just in relation to MidiBlocks, but beyond. That is just one project, I'm sure you've got more in you, if you want to pursue other things.

lmoroney 3y ago
It wasn't stolen. See my above statement. We supported Oz in the ways that we could.
romanhn 3y ago
With a big company like Google you can't just randomly hire someone without putting them through the rigorous interview process that can be months long (been there, done that), accomplishments or not (see the Homebrew dude).
- rmbyrro 3y ago
  They have thousands of contractors and consultants that don't go through this process. That's not a valid reason.
- dappermanneke 3y ago
  of course not, you have to acquire their LLC to let them skip the interview process. so building stuff does count, but only if done commercially
  - romanhn 3y ago
    FYI, it is incredibly common to subject acquihired employees to the same interviews, and extend offers only to those that pass. This is especially true at FAANG.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 3y ago
  So if John Carmack, Guido, Rich Hickey, Donald Knuth wanted a job, they would first have to leet code like everyone else? The reason the failure to invert a binary tree story was notable was because the dude invented Homebrew. He was supposed to enter though the back door, but someone screwed up and made him go through the regular mechanism.

chaps 3y ago

Oz, if you're reading this -- is there anything we can do to support you and your work?

dinkleberg 3y ago

This is depressing to read. This is so close to being the amazing story we all want to hear about. A veteran, suffering from PTSD, falls on hard times and ends up homeless. Despite his hard situation, he strives to help those who are even worse off. He learns how to program and uses these skills to build something to improve the lives of those are severely disadvantaged. He spends years working on this project and ends up building something really cool and useful. So useful in fact that his dedication pays off and one of the biggest software companies in the world is inspired and brings him on to scale up this technology to help improve the lives of millions. Except of course that doesn't end up happening. Instead, we're left reminded that life can be cruel.

rpbo 3y ago
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rootkea 3y ago
> life can be cruel. We can be more specific here. "Some people can be cruel". (Of course, I'm talking about the one who took all the notes from Oz then instead of giving him the credits ghosted him completely and later co-authored the blog post announcing the "inspired" project. https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface https://blog.google/technology/ai/google-project-gameface)
- paul7986 3y ago
  Ummm it's not the employee it's Google and it's culture of thievery as it ... - Copied iOS and created Android - Worked with Sonos then stole from Sonos; Sonos 10 years later wins a victory in court https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/26/23739273/google-sonos-smart-speaker-patent-lawsuit-ruling https://www.theverge.com/2023/5/26/23739273/google-sonos-sma... - To inviting a MIT student out for an interview who demoed her tech & they patented it https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18566929 To many other examples ... it's not the employees it's the company!
  - doloputer 3y ago

dappermanneke 3y ago

sounds like this dude got caught in someone’s promo packet assembly. i wouldn’t worry too much if i were him. this’ll be deprecated in three years or so once it served its purpose to signal how good of an engineer the person who made it as part of their promo package is

lololololllolll 3y ago

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rpbo 3y ago

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somsak2 3y ago

would highly recommend Oz look for some mental health resources. nowadays there's plenty of self-study online, no insurance or expensive therapist needed. wishing him best of luck.

anuraaga 3y ago

It's interesting how even before this has taken hold on HN the repo was already basically dead https://github.com/google/project-gameface/pull/31#issuecomment-1683443314 https://github.com/google/project-gameface/pull/31#issuecomm... More interesting is not having the "This is not an official Google project so not supported" disclaimer so many repos in their org has. Shady origins, shoddy maintenance, but the incident will be forgotten as is usually the case. The reality is Google still has huge mindshare and respect among engineers and will likely be immune to damage in these situations.

lmoroney 3y ago
That's really sad. We wanted GameFace to be something that we kickstarted and then donated to the community to run with. That's still the case.
- FloatArtifact 3y ago
  I would like to respect Oz decision to close the issue and his desire to see gameface succeed. For those that are uninformed please read the issue. Imoroney what can we do as a community? This project is still in need of a measure of Google support to be handed off to the community. The project needs fostering to develop community lead maintainers. This project could be useful as a library, not just as a front end. Accessibility must scale to its users needs. For instance, integrating with speech recognition, eye tracking, and other peripherals allows people to have the most interaction with their environment. I for one would love to work on hooking into gameface with C#, python for integration alongside grammar based speech recognition.
  - lmoroney 3y ago
    I won't claim any expertise in the licensing side of things -- but there's a fully working product there that people can take a run with. If you want to build a business on it and thus grow this, AFAIK, the Apache 2.0 license permits that. That was always my goal with this -- my team is not in the business of product development. Still, there was (and is) an opportunity to build the basis for an app that the community could either maintain or an entrepreneur could use. Either way, if it spreads the tech far and wide to help more people like Lance, we all win.

redog 3y ago

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Slava_Propanei 3y ago

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nojvek 3y ago

Playing Evil’s advocate for google Google has abandoned a ton of projects, and this repo kind of looks abandoned. It’s likely google loses interest in it like they have a deserved reputation. Google has no obligation to pay anyone other than their employees and vendors. If Oz doesn’t like what google is doing, he can continue on his own repo right?

malepoon2 3y ago

For what it's worth, here's what Moroney is saying: "I’m out on vacation right now, and will respond when I get back. But these allegations are completely untrue, and massively distressing to me, and to others." https://twitter.com/lmoroney/status/1702695501542597080 https://twitter.com/lmoroney/status/1702695501542597080 How convenient he's on vacation right now. Why didn't he respond sooner if it's all untrue? (Also why am I not surprised to see this guy paid for a blue check...)

lmoroney 3y ago
It is the truth that I was out on vacation at that time, and largely incommunicado, or at least I was supposed to be until these false allegations arose. It is the truth that it was, and continues to be, massively distressing to me to be falsely accused like this. It is the truth that I paid (out of my own pocket) for a blue check, because in the new Twitter that gets me 10x engagement, and I've always used my platform to enable and lift up others. That's what makes these accusations, and the follow-on abuse and attacks over email and otherwise so distressing. I'm standing by those truths.
derangedHorse 3y ago
Yeah I don’t understand how he gets tagged on an issue thread like that and doesn’t say anything until it reached enough eyes. Definitely seems suspicious. He also could have easily pointed out some specifics instead of just saying it’s untrue and saying he’ll get back to it after vacation.
- lmoroney 3y ago
  I wasn't 'tagged' on a thread, and I didn't learn about it until it was posted on here.
RGBCube 3y ago
What's wrong with paying for a blue check?

lmoroney 3y ago

If you are coming to this thread, please go back to the GitHub thread that it is linked to, and see updated statements from Oz, including an apology for accusing me of stealing his idea.