Apparently, it was a misunderstanding on his part.
"I misunderstood some issues I wrote about earlier today. Chart.js is now back online and available under MIT. http://www.chartjs.org ." - https://twitter.com/_nnnick/status/314049798502248448
"I misunderstood some issues I wrote about earlier today. Chart.js is now back online and available under MIT. http://www.chartjs.org ." - https://twitter.com/_nnnick/status/314049798502248448
Just an idea.
(I have no idea what happened in this specific case).
Usually, when someone does something mildly serious (we are just wrist-slappy about the minor stuff, unless you do it multiple times, or intentionally) without following the process, first I verify they actually did it without any accusation at all. This often takes the form "It looks like you did X. Is this right or am I misunderstanding?".
If they did in fact, do it, I then say "Hey, just so you know, this could be an issue. I need to talk with some folks, and then we should talk and figure out together what to do about this. You <do/don't> need to do anything in the meanwhile" . Whether they need to do anything depends on the issue, but I am explicit about whether anything needs to be done.
At this point, the reactions vary from "oh shit, sorry, i didn't realize i was supposed to something different" to "fuck the police".
In any case, despite me explicitly telling them they did not need to do anything, there are still cases where someone will do something like take the project down (sometimes intentionally believing it will force my hand, sometimes not), and claim we told them to.
I go and talk with various folks like I said I would, then the person involved, we all decide we don't care (or do), and then it gets put back (or not), or whatever modifications needed are made. Usually if it's put back, this is accompanied by text like you see, stating that they misunderstood some issues. In most cases i've dealt with, this is actually an accurate statement of what occurred, and not us trying to save face. After all, I told them they did not need to do anything!
Of course, I won't deny there are times i've told folks to hide/take down projects. But in those cases, we don't later try to save face. I could completely see other companies not knowing what they are doing, and telling folks to take stuff down as a knee jerk. It definitely happens. But without more facts here, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that this is what occurred.
EDIT: typo
Could be either a genuine case of the author hearing one thing and the company meaning another, or a change of mind by the company, possibly involving higher ups.
No, and you are not supposed to be able to understand. Otherwise being polite and claiming to have misunderstood something wouldn’t make any sense, as it would be equivalent to blaming the company directly.
It is nobody's business here but Nick's what happened. Take his words at face value and assume he misunderstood his boss unless you have reason to believe otherwise and it actually matters.
I think this is wrong, Nick initally posted to the Internet - without caveat's - I think it's perfectly reasonable to ask question's and intrigue.
Probably after going over it, they determined that it would present no harm. Notice that this was not a legal process, just an employer and developer communicating.
That could easily be interpreted more broadly than it was intended. He could interpret it as "I learned Javascript while working there, so I can't release a project in Javascript" or something like that, when they really intended it to prevent use of non-publicly available information related to their business.