Hacker News Reader

Comment by youareawesome | Hacker News Reader

This project has been known to copy code from other projects without respecting licenses. The founder of ethereum pointed this out a few weeks ago.

https://twitter.com/gavofyork/status/1094597005333151745 https://twitter.com/Sunfishcode/status/1075486397824327681

The extent to which the people in this project took "inspiration" from wasmjit has been questioned as well https://github.com/wasmerio/wasmer/commit/a81500e047fdd321b3...

View on HN

Hi, thanks for bringing this to our attention!

We think we've resolved this issue here (https://twitter.com/syrusakbary/status/1094635228457426944), but our response was definitely later than it should have been. If you feel that we need to rectify further, feel free to email me at lachlan@wasmer.io.

Looks like they made a mistake, apologised, and have added attribution since?

When they were called out privately, no mistake was admitted and no action was taken. The attribution was only added after they were called out publicly.

a problem fixed under less ideal situations is still a fixed problem regardless.

Do you think they would they have fixed the problem if they weren't called out publicly?

If it's a "once off", then it probably a bad idea to treat them with too much hostility and suspicion. That'd stop further first time mistake/makers from fessing up and fixing things.

If however this project has a history of doing the wrong thing, covering up, and only fixing things for PR value... then yeah, not really a project to put time into. :)

i don't think it matters because they __did__ fix the problem. maybe that would have been a problem in the past before the problem became acknowledged, but the thing is, that isn't the case anymore and so to me it really doesn't matter. but even if it did matter, i still probably wouldn't care. sometimes people need convincing to do a thing and when it comes to presenting a consistent and positive image to others, i think it's quite a generally good thing if someone is responsive to the criticism of others and actually acts on it. maybe they should have fixed it before of their own accord. but maybe before they didn't see the issue that others saw. people aren't perfect any they make mistakes. constantly.

Do you think it's possible that this wasn't a mistake and instead they acted with malicious intentions and only fixed the problem to minimize the negative PR fallout? If not, why not?

i sure think it's possible but my decision is binded by Hanlon's razor in this case. don't attribute to malicious intent that which is attributable to stupidity/neglect/etc. so I mean it's possible they had malicious intent, but i mean, really, what did they stand to gain by having it? to me it just seems more likely that they just didn't notice.

Do you think potentially malicious behavior should be overlooked or made known?

i think it's for the best if such is done, yes, but then the question becomes potentially malicious by whose standard? for instance, if we were to operate off of what your perspective appears to be, then you (appear to) have the preconceived notion that the actions were indeed malicious and if anything it would seem you're seeking to gratify your inherent confirmation bias as a human rather than attempting to discern the actual nature of things. of course, i don't want you to think im saying you're doing any of this with absolute certainty as im not sure we can know anything with such clarity, but more just that in these situations it pays to have a third party that is ultimately detached from either outcome to determine which interpretation is the most valid one. also words

I agree that attention should be drawn to potentially malicious behavior.

I don't know that the actions were indeed malicious but there is evidence to suggest that they may have been and I'm doing my small part to make the greater community aware. This will enable the community to make wiser judgments in the future, if the need arises.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com