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It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be rui

It's very clear that Goldman is trying to punish him for leaving, while sending a message to their other programmers that if they leave, their lives will be ruined. Even if this guy ultimately wins the state trial, he will never get back the years he has spent fighting it. Goldman has already won, and in this case that is appalling.

vinkelhake 13y ago
Things always appear clear to conspiracy theorists. Do you have facts to back this up? People join and leave jobs in the financial industry every day. Is Goldman Sachs special in this regard?
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  Those people wearing the tinfoil hats were right.
- downandout 13y ago
  Do you have any idea how rare it is for a judge to order the alleged victim of a crime to pay the defense costs of the alleged perpetrator? If I'm a conspiracy theorist, the judge that made this ruling is as well.
- pvnick 13y ago
  Ok can we please stop with the "conspiracy theorist" label/ad hominem attacks? After the NSA revelations have shown things to be a lot worse than even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists thought, folks with an eye for corruption have earned a little wiggle room to be taken seriously.
  - vinkelhake 13y ago
    If you begin a statement with "It's very clear" then I expect you to back that statement up with facts so that the rest of us can see why it's so clear. Does it seem reasonable that Goldman Sachs want to send a message to their own programmers? Is that going to work well for them in recruiting? If anything, the NSA revelations have given conspiracy theorists carte blanche to go full steam on their theories. You'll hardly find a thread related to Google on HN without the obligatory "Well, now that we know that Google has given NSA has unfettered access to all data..."
    - md224 13y ago
      Another important aspect is whether or not the belief in these theories is justified, regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true. This kind of relates to the Gettier problem in epistemology, where one may "know" something completely by accident, and we wouldn't really consider that "knowledge." Were conspiracy theorists justified in believing their theories prior to the NSA leaks? Maybe, maybe not. But we should probably consider that independently of whether or not their theories turned out to be right. After all, we can never be 100% sure of our knowledge; the best we can do is seek the most reliable methods of inquiry. If a conspiracy theorist makes 50 predictions and 45 of them turn out to be correct, then we might have a reason to adopt their thought patterns; if someone has one big suspicion and that suspicion turns out to be true, I'm not sure how much we can conclude from that. (Sorry, I know this discussion is getting off-topic... I just have a mild fascination with conspiracy theories and epistemology.)
      - jamesaguilar 13y ago
        Yep. This is the same question as people who always believe there is a bubble. Really great comment.
      - Daniel_Newby 13y ago
        Nothing the NSA was doing was news. Or indeed even hidden, much of it having been previously reported on HN and even the mainstream news. Few people connected the NSA dots because few people connect any dots. There are dozens of other important stories snowed under by the same blizzard of laziness and stupidity.
  - mehwoot 13y ago
    After the NSA revelations have shown things to be a lot worse than even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists thought Really? Even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists didn't think that the Government could read the address and subject of your emails? The same people that think the Government did 9/11 and faked the moon landing? Don't even get me started on chemtrails...
  - jamesaguilar 13y ago
    No, we can't really. Being right once doesn't mean you get to throw around wild accusations without proof and avoid being called on it.
Permit 13y ago
How is that clear? I haven't followed the case, but it seems as though he copied important intellectual property (HFT code) when he left the firm. I'm sure if a developer at Apple or Microsoft downloaded the Windows or OS X kernel code when they left that they would face charges of some kind as well.
- downandout 13y ago
  I read the original (very detailed) article. According to it, everything he copied was non-proprietary. Almost all of it was open source stuff.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Changes to open source stuff may or may not be proprietary, depending...
  - horridrats 13y ago
    Not according to Goldman Sachs: "While some of those files included open source software, the Court determined that 'a substantially greater number of the uploaded files contained proprietary code.'"
    - Amadou 13y ago
      Sounds like two different definitions of the word "proprietary" are involved here: (1) Mechanical changes specific to the company -- this could be as simple as hardcoded hostnames that match the deployment environment. (2) Implementations of algorithms. In this case it isn't the code that is proprietary so much as the algorithm that the code is an expression of. I suspect that downandout is talking about defintion #1 and the court is talking about definition #2. Hard to say without seeing the code itself.
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        Presumably 1 subsumes 2.
  - 13y ago
TrainedMonkey 13y ago
That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  "while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public" I hadn't heard this part of it - what was the license in question?
  - anonymoushn 13y ago
    I'm also curious about this. Not even AGPL would have such a requirement.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      Not unless they were using it to offer some service electronically - which is conceivable, but doesn't seem hugely likely.
  - TrainedMonkey 13y ago
    I originally read it in some in depth article that was talking about this. I can't find this now, so I removed that part. Now that I think about article might have been talking about "spirit" of open source license - if it is useful to you, contribute back, rather then actual license requirement.
- burntsushi 13y ago
  > (Which Goldman illegally prohibited him from releasing, while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public) I don't know the exact details of the case, but just to clarify: under the GPL, you don't have to release your changes if you aren't distributing that commercial product. e.g., If he modified it for in-house use, there is, AFAIK, no legal obligation to release those modifications (under the GPL).
melling 13y ago
No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. He works in an industry that does not allow you to email code home or copy it off of company computers. Goldman might be a little different, but where I've worked, this was definitely a no, no, and you could easily be fired for doing it.
- fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
  >No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. That might be clear to rubes who believe everything that they see on television. What's clear to me is that Goldman Sachs wants to ruin this guy's life. Which, to some people, makes him a stand-up guy.
- Amadou 13y ago
  Fired is one thing, but malicious prosecution is completely out of proportion to a rules violation.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
- downandout 13y ago
  According to the original article, Goldman was actually violating the license terms of the open source software it had modified by not releasing it. Further, while you and I may have our opinions, a judge found Goldman's actions to be so egregious that he ordered them to pay the defense costs for someone accused of stealing from them. That is exceedingly rare, and wouldn't have happened if there were any doubts about either Goldman's conduct or the intentions of the programmer.
  - atamyrat 13y ago
    I don't know details of this case but it's very unlikely GS was violating any FOSS license for just modifying code (assuming internal use only).
    - 13y ago
akira2501 13y ago
I think they're more concerned with their reputation and the perception of their internal practices and controls, and most importantly the value of their "technology." Just read the second and third sentence of Goldman's reply.

vinkelhake 13y ago

Things always appear clear to conspiracy theorists. Do you have facts to back this up? People join and leave jobs in the financial industry every day. Is Goldman Sachs special in this regard?

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
Those people wearing the tinfoil hats were right.
downandout 13y ago
Do you have any idea how rare it is for a judge to order the alleged victim of a crime to pay the defense costs of the alleged perpetrator? If I'm a conspiracy theorist, the judge that made this ruling is as well.
pvnick 13y ago
Ok can we please stop with the "conspiracy theorist" label/ad hominem attacks? After the NSA revelations have shown things to be a lot worse than even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists thought, folks with an eye for corruption have earned a little wiggle room to be taken seriously.
- vinkelhake 13y ago
  If you begin a statement with "It's very clear" then I expect you to back that statement up with facts so that the rest of us can see why it's so clear. Does it seem reasonable that Goldman Sachs want to send a message to their own programmers? Is that going to work well for them in recruiting? If anything, the NSA revelations have given conspiracy theorists carte blanche to go full steam on their theories. You'll hardly find a thread related to Google on HN without the obligatory "Well, now that we know that Google has given NSA has unfettered access to all data..."
  - md224 13y ago
    Another important aspect is whether or not the belief in these theories is justified, regardless of whether or not they turn out to be true. This kind of relates to the Gettier problem in epistemology, where one may "know" something completely by accident, and we wouldn't really consider that "knowledge." Were conspiracy theorists justified in believing their theories prior to the NSA leaks? Maybe, maybe not. But we should probably consider that independently of whether or not their theories turned out to be right. After all, we can never be 100% sure of our knowledge; the best we can do is seek the most reliable methods of inquiry. If a conspiracy theorist makes 50 predictions and 45 of them turn out to be correct, then we might have a reason to adopt their thought patterns; if someone has one big suspicion and that suspicion turns out to be true, I'm not sure how much we can conclude from that. (Sorry, I know this discussion is getting off-topic... I just have a mild fascination with conspiracy theories and epistemology.)
    - jamesaguilar 13y ago
      Yep. This is the same question as people who always believe there is a bubble. Really great comment.
    - Daniel_Newby 13y ago
      Nothing the NSA was doing was news. Or indeed even hidden, much of it having been previously reported on HN and even the mainstream news. Few people connected the NSA dots because few people connect any dots. There are dozens of other important stories snowed under by the same blizzard of laziness and stupidity.
- mehwoot 13y ago
  After the NSA revelations have shown things to be a lot worse than even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists thought Really? Even the more paranoid conspiracy theorists didn't think that the Government could read the address and subject of your emails? The same people that think the Government did 9/11 and faked the moon landing? Don't even get me started on chemtrails...
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  No, we can't really. Being right once doesn't mean you get to throw around wild accusations without proof and avoid being called on it.

Permit 13y ago

How is that clear? I haven't followed the case, but it seems as though he copied important intellectual property (HFT code) when he left the firm. I'm sure if a developer at Apple or Microsoft downloaded the Windows or OS X kernel code when they left that they would face charges of some kind as well.

downandout 13y ago
I read the original (very detailed) article. According to it, everything he copied was non-proprietary. Almost all of it was open source stuff.
- dllthomas 13y ago
  Changes to open source stuff may or may not be proprietary, depending...
- horridrats 13y ago
  Not according to Goldman Sachs: "While some of those files included open source software, the Court determined that 'a substantially greater number of the uploaded files contained proprietary code.'"
  - Amadou 13y ago
    Sounds like two different definitions of the word "proprietary" are involved here: (1) Mechanical changes specific to the company -- this could be as simple as hardcoded hostnames that match the deployment environment. (2) Implementations of algorithms. In this case it isn't the code that is proprietary so much as the algorithm that the code is an expression of. I suspect that downandout is talking about defintion #1 and the court is talking about definition #2. Hard to say without seeing the code itself.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      Presumably 1 subsumes 2.
- 13y ago

TrainedMonkey 13y ago

That is essentially correct. However this fight is about more than just him. Essentially he took open source that he modified while at Goldman (Which Goldman prohibited him from releasing *fixed). So while his life is ruined (Although he is still better of then 99.99% of people out there) there is a mighty precedent in the works here: employees can't go to jail for legally following license.

dllthomas 13y ago
"while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public" I hadn't heard this part of it - what was the license in question?
- anonymoushn 13y ago
  I'm also curious about this. Not even AGPL would have such a requirement.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    Not unless they were using it to offer some service electronically - which is conceivable, but doesn't seem hugely likely.
- TrainedMonkey 13y ago
  I originally read it in some in depth article that was talking about this. I can't find this now, so I removed that part. Now that I think about article might have been talking about "spirit" of open source license - if it is useful to you, contribute back, rather then actual license requirement.
burntsushi 13y ago
> (Which Goldman illegally prohibited him from releasing, while license explicitly said if you modify it for commercial product you must make your contributions public) I don't know the exact details of the case, but just to clarify: under the GPL, you don't have to release your changes if you aren't distributing that commercial product. e.g., If he modified it for in-house use, there is, AFAIK, no legal obligation to release those modifications (under the GPL).

melling 13y ago

No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. He works in an industry that does not allow you to email code home or copy it off of company computers. Goldman might be a little different, but where I've worked, this was definitely a no, no, and you could easily be fired for doing it.

fnordfnordfnord 13y ago
>No, it's very clear what he did was wrong. That might be clear to rubes who believe everything that they see on television. What's clear to me is that Goldman Sachs wants to ruin this guy's life. Which, to some people, makes him a stand-up guy.
Amadou 13y ago
Fired is one thing, but malicious prosecution is completely out of proportion to a rules violation.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
downandout 13y ago
According to the original article, Goldman was actually violating the license terms of the open source software it had modified by not releasing it. Further, while you and I may have our opinions, a judge found Goldman's actions to be so egregious that he ordered them to pay the defense costs for someone accused of stealing from them. That is exceedingly rare, and wouldn't have happened if there were any doubts about either Goldman's conduct or the intentions of the programmer.
- atamyrat 13y ago
  I don't know details of this case but it's very unlikely GS was violating any FOSS license for just modifying code (assuming internal use only).
  - 13y ago

akira2501 13y ago

I think they're more concerned with their reputation and the perception of their internal practices and controls, and most importantly the value of their "technology." Just read the second and third sentence of Goldman's reply.