The project is Apache licensed, so even if they took it, outside of lacking attribution / retaining copyright, I don't see a problem? They would be require to add it to an "About" tab or something.
The project in question is here:
The project in question is here:
> DeepDelver recognized that Pathways looked a lot like Sim.ai’s open source agent-building product called SimStudio and asked Delve if it was based on SimStudio. The Delve folks said they built it themselves, the whistleblower contends.
If they were upfront about that it was a fork, and attributed it, sounds like there wouldn't have been any issues here at all.
Edit: Yeah they do. There's no excuse for goofing this up.
"We didn't understand the licensing!" isnt usually an incredible claim, but it becomes so when it's being made by a company that manages software licensing compliance.
That's a hell of a caveat though. That is basically the entire license.
Its like saying you are allowed to kill people minus that whole law about murder. Well like obviously. You are allowed to do anything minus the rules that forbid you from doing the thing.
Generally speaking, open source ecosystem knowledge is not something that shows up in job descriptions, interviews, or regular training for non-technical staff in most software companies. Hopefully that will one day be the case but until then there is a high likelihood that misleading statements can be made accidentally.
Every company of non-trivial sizes will eventually hire someone who is a bad hire.
That's a bit like a shoplifter saying "well, outside of not paying for it, I don't see a problem?".
Apache 2.0 clearly says you must include the license, include copyright, state any changes you've made and include the NOTICE file. None of that was done, so this is a pretty clear violation of the license. The copyright holders can demand that this is fixed immediately, seek at least an injunction if that does not happen, and maybe even claim profits made from selling the software while violating the license.
They used it without having a license. The apache license would have allowed them to use it, but they didn’t meet the conditions.
This sounds equivalent to using paid software without paying to me.
The original author could well claim that “the cost of a license under the terms which they used it is $2M”. After all, the cost of software licenses is entirely arbitrary and set by the author (copyright owner).
You still have to be careful not to invest in imbeciles, but unethical is OK.
Shouldn't morality be the basis for all of the laws?
So we disagree rather vehemently, except for "Whatever makes the most money for powerful people" is bad.
This would not be moral in any serious ethical framework
Edit: Human equality is often one of the most important topics in Ethics. Why do you think so much effort is put into depicting Others as Inhuman?
We agree, but I'm not particularly talking about "serious ethical frameworks" I'm talking about the most likely scenario if we try to implement law based on morality. It will be a corrupted morality from the get-go. Hence me caring about whose morality.
> Edit: Human equality is often one of the most important topics in Ethics. Why do you think so much effort is put into depicting Others as Inhuman?
Because it takes so much to change minds to see others as inhuman?
So let's distill this down:
- You're saying law already has or should have a moral component -- we agree.
- I'm saying that whose morality matters because humans will not apply morality evenly. We aren't perfect machines. We're run in part by our biases.
- You're saying that isn't a serious ethical framework then. Agreed.
- Finally I'm saying that if we choose to implement law from this point forward with a "new morality" -- that the "new morality" will already be corrupted by the people implementing it. It won't be a "serious ethical framework" -- it will be some watered down non-perfect version that privileges an in-group over an out-group, because humans do that stuff.
This phrase in the article in particular is frustrating:
DeepDelver calls this “stealing intellectual property,” which is a bit of a stretch, since open source tools are freely available to be used, if they are properly credited.
Oh because my license terms are more liberal, it doesn't matter as much when you break them?? Really? Bonkers that they would publish that.
They are explicitly forbidden from doing this without attribution. So yes, there is a legal problem with this. All they needed to do to avoid that was provide attribution, but Delve was staffed with such morally bankrupt and incompetent individuals that they couldn't even do that.