Thanks for using my code, Google | Hacker News Reader

Thanks for using my code, Google

openphotovr.jottit.com

70 pointscousin_it32 comments

The most amazing part of this post is that people are still using jottit.

I use it a lot, for internal stuff only. But it's very useful for me. Is there any better alternative? (jottit is king in being simple and fast)

Make sure you back it up!

What's wrong with jottit? It's good for me. Are you kidding here?

well its obvious they copied. It doesnt matter if it is a re write. They owe somebody a thank note.

So much for the do no evil bullshit.

Building on someone else's work is "evil" now? Where I come from, we call that "progress."

the evil was not referencing the original work

I am sure you've heard of the word credit.

The interface on the Google service is identical as best as I can figure - does "Do no evil" include saying thank you to the authors of open source code?

I see a lot of differences; maybe they even recoded it from scratch. But it uses some interesting tricks I invented, and doesn't use the easy features that I didn't include. They definitely have at least seen the source code.

maybe they even recoded it from scratch

Even when Google buys a startup they usually rewrite everything.

I also wonder if "do no evil" includes not peeking at the fellow's gmail account.

When I read about Panoramio (Google product) on TC today, I thought about how similar it is with your product. I don't know how long Google has been working on Panoramio, but I think you have a good product. Instead of closing the project down, did you try to get funding and take your service to next level?

I never wanted to earn money with this thing, it was conceived and started as a non-profit. My number one goal was to see Sagrada Familia again, as it should be seen. The other goal was to change people's minds, change the web, open a new possibility. Win on both counts.

That's quite a spirit right there; great respect for that, and upmods won't quite do justice. I salute you sir.

Wow this is amazing. What many would do to have google use our code haha... Congrats man.

People are pointing out this is likely a rewrite. Fun, anyway.

I'm not a flash guy so I'm not sure about this, but isn't it possible to decompile flash?

No need, I released the source as GPL. It was legal for them to just take it.

Well, if you want a job at Google working on Photosynth for Google Earth, you could try asking them...

Yeah, I meant as a way to confirm that they are really using it?

Ah I see, sorry I didn't understand you. Too lazy to decompile the Flash code, but the JavaScript is unfamiliar to me and seems to indicate a rewrite.

Hmm... very interesting. Flash is sent to the browser as a binary then, right? The GPL says that any derived works which are distributed as binaries must have the source code (including the changes) made available publicly.

Out of curiosity and to maintain the openness of open source software, it might not be a bad idea to mention to Google that the app looks to use GPL software and request to see the source. Of course, if they rewrote it, this is a bit more complicated (a line-by-line rewrite, or an interface-based rewrite?), but it might be worth a shot.

I wouldn't want anyone to do that. It is a good thing that photo VR is becoming mainstream.

Yes, but it's also a good thing that open source software is becoming mainstream. If companies are able to present someone else's open source work as their own, without even giving any credit, it destroys a huge part of the incentive for writing open source software in the first place (recognition).

I wasn't saying that the author should try to get the content taken down. I was just saying that he deserves either:

(1) a clarification from Google saying that they liked the interface and did an interface-based rewrite without consulting the his source code

-or-

(2) a release of the modified source code (as the GPL requires)

I'm not trying to stop photo VR from becoming mainstream. Since when does open-sourcing something prevent it from becoming mainstream?

kinda feel bad for the fellow, although to his admittance his only innovation was some flash code. I wish him well in his 'for profit' venture

Hey, I'm that fellow. Why feel bad? It's a win.

Seems like you worked hard on a problem - but got beat to getting paid for it.

Actually it was much easier than it looks - less than 5 hours per week, for 5 months. A thousand lines of code for the interface, another couple hundred on the server side. PHP, JavaScript, Flash. Cheap shared hosting account. Logo made with Web 2.0 Logo Generator.

The way the post is worded sounds sarcastic... maybe that's why the sentiment expressed above.

Just out of interest, have you thought much on how you'd go about doing automatic matching?

Would it be feasible to use one of the SIFT implementations out there?

Yes, thought a lot, and coded a little. Main problem: sparse bundle adjustment is slow and non-incremental. From what I hear, the same problem is delaying the release of MS Photosynth. Maybe the answer is running SBA on small numbers of user-supplied points rather than SIFT output. Maybe I'm just clueless.

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