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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 pr

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).
- dllthomas 13y ago
  If he modified it for his own use, then that's clearly the case. If he modified it for the use of others within Goldman, they might have conceivably had a claim to a copy of the source under the GPL; he would not. I'm not entirely sure of that, or of whether employment contracts &c could limit that. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure what the answer should be there.
  - bmm6o 13y ago
    I think an internal user could easily be persuaded not to demand the source code.
    - dllthomas 13y ago
      In the typical case, probably, but if you have a large organization you could easily wind up with one exception. What rights these people do and don't have still seems important.
      - bmm6o 13y ago
        One exception who invited legal trouble for the organization as a matter of some kind of principle would likely find himself no longer a member of the organization. In the best-case scenario, this person gets to see the source code for an internal tool. Who exactly is going to fund this legal battle?
        dllthomas 13y ago
        What about one exception who was already on the way out? Or what about one exception who was engaged in industrial espionage? I'm just saying if you're just relying on employees not exercising rights they have - after which something you've been trying to prevent distribution of can be freely distributed - your situation is somewhat fragile.
        pyre 13y ago
        Apparently the company itself if he or she is an officer of the company (as in this case). :P
deleted 13y ago
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gscott 13y ago
If he gets convicted of a felony it is pretty certain he won't be able to work on high frequency trading systems that compete with GS, which is likely all that they want.

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).

dllthomas 13y ago
If he modified it for his own use, then that's clearly the case. If he modified it for the use of others within Goldman, they might have conceivably had a claim to a copy of the source under the GPL; he would not. I'm not entirely sure of that, or of whether employment contracts &c could limit that. For that matter, I'm not entirely sure what the answer should be there.
- bmm6o 13y ago
  I think an internal user could easily be persuaded not to demand the source code.
  - dllthomas 13y ago
    In the typical case, probably, but if you have a large organization you could easily wind up with one exception. What rights these people do and don't have still seems important.
    - bmm6o 13y ago
      One exception who invited legal trouble for the organization as a matter of some kind of principle would likely find himself no longer a member of the organization. In the best-case scenario, this person gets to see the source code for an internal tool. Who exactly is going to fund this legal battle?
      - dllthomas 13y ago
        What about one exception who was already on the way out? Or what about one exception who was engaged in industrial espionage? I'm just saying if you're just relying on employees not exercising rights they have - after which something you've been trying to prevent distribution of can be freely distributed - your situation is somewhat fragile.
      - pyre 13y ago
        Apparently the company itself if he or she is an officer of the company (as in this case). :P

deleted 13y ago

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gscott 13y ago

If he gets convicted of a felony it is pretty certain he won't be able to work on high frequency trading systems that compete with GS, which is likely all that they want.