Was just reading the recent article up at Vanity Fair about the arrest,
trial, conviction, and jailing of developer Sergey Aleynikov who was
accused of stealing code from Goldman Sachs.
(http://www.vanityfair.com/business/2013/09/michael-lewis-goldman-sachs-programmer)
I didn't realize it until reading this article, but apparently the case
greatly involves open source code. The article seems to indicate that
Goldman often intermingled their own code with open source (and rarely,
if ever, contributed back their own enhancements). And according to the
article Aleynikov's rationale for making copies of the code in the first
place was so that he could at a later date re-use and/or contribute back
the enhancements he had intermingled with the original open source.
No violation on GS' part so far, of course. But what really caught my
eye is where it mentions that Goldman treated all code - even open
source - as Goldman property, and that at trial Aleynikov's attorney
even help up 2 copies of the same code - one with an open source license
on top, and then an identical copy with a Goldman copyright. If this is
true - and if Goldman did indeed do this habitually - then this could
constitute numerous violations of open source licenses on their part.
The article doesn't specifically say whether any of the code in question
was GPL. But with GPL code being so prevalent these days I'd guess
there's a decent chance that at least some of it was. I'd imagine that
either the article's author, Aleynikov, and/or his attorney might be
open to sharing some additional information with interested parties on this.
Hope this is helpful/useful info to someone.
Best,
DR
