Hacker News Reader

Comment by shmerl | Hacker News Reader

Or you know, they can stop being jerks and release sources for the code they derived from the GPLed one.

> It's just that this GPL thing doesn't even register on their legal radar

It should register.

> Similarly any concerns raised by engineering are never taken seriously by the legal council.

Not in any serious company to my experience. Being so lax on legal matters for such company shows very low level of their management's professionalism.

View on HN

Especially since the GPL is one of the most widely known copyleft licenses out there. I can expect a layman to not know about it, but the software engineers at VMWare?

It sounds from the above comment that even if engineers raise this issue, their legal department dismisses it. I find it bizarre for any serious company.

Yes exactly. Most large organizations (with in house counsel) take feedback from software/systems engineering very seriously. For compliance (especially licenses) contract requirements etc. Legal exists to serve/protect the organization.

That comment is just supposition. The author has not demonstrated any knowledge of VMware development or legal practices.

You assume that a software engineer knows any more about copyright law than a random person from the street? Cuz I'm pretty sure they don't also in virtually every company it will be "don't bother with this, let the lawyers deal with it".

Companies violate patents licenses agreements and all other legal nonsense all the time, that's what they got lawyers for.

> Being so lax on legal matters for such company shows very low level of their management's professionalism.

Actually, no, it doesn't.

It merely means that the management views GPL violations as a low-probability calculated risk. As in "we know that we can be in compliance, but we won't be wasting any resources on it until it's justified". It has nothing to do with the professionalism.

In a world where lying and cheating when it's convienient is considered professional, you're right.

Welcome to business!

You mean unethical business.

So business.

Ethics don't enter into it--you might be thinking of negative externalities. That's the responsibility of the person running things next fiscal year. In the mean time, quit worrying and go deliver shareholder value.

> That's the responsibility of the person running things next fiscal year. In the mean time, quit worrying and go deliver shareholder value.

No, that's a weird attitude (i.e. I'll create a mess today, next person will clean it tomorrow). One has to be responsible for the mess, and actually preventing it to begin with. What you described is exactly the lack of professionalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subprime_mortgage_crisis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Wednesday

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Comcast

It's only unprofessional if you're bad at it.

It's unprofessional for normal companies. Unless you are talking about being a professional crook (and that's not what I'm talking about).

Look, "professional" is a lie told by successful people to keep dullards in line. There is the almighty dollar, the pursuit of that dollar, and what you have to do to attain that dollar--if you aren't in this to get paid as much as the market will bear and damn the consequences, you sir are the unprofessional one.

I get what you're saying, and I agree absolutely that it is a morally reprehensible thing to lie, cheat, or take the short-term approach to long-term problems. At the same time, you have to realize that anthropomorphizing companies is wrong. They are entities created to obtain profits, and any other reasoning about them is just going to cause you grief and distress. Accept that the system is made to generate non-corporeal profit-seeking amoral sociopaths, and move the fuck on.

> They are entities created to obtain profits

No. It's a fake logic often used to excuse of kind of crooked behavior. This doesn't fly. Crooks are crooks, whether they are a company or not. Companies have those who drive them. If those people at the head can't control their own companies not to be crooks - too bad for them, they bear the responsibility.

> As in "we know that we can be in compliance, but we won't be wasting any resources on it until it's justified". It has nothing to do with the professionalism.

It sounds like it has everything to do with professionalism.

What a bizarre world we live in where willful violations of a legally binding license (a license which attempts to keep knowledge in the open) is considered nothing more than a "calculated risk."

Every time you speed on the freeway, you're willfully violating the law, and taking a calculated risk that you won't get caught. No?

I don't speed.

I'm sure you've never jaywalked or littered or sped in a car and thought to yourself "there's no way i'll get in trouble for this so i'll do it anyway". Except in VMware's case they are much large than a single person so their list of "low risk" crimes is larger.

I don't jaywalk, litter, or speed.

Actually, that entire statement shows they don't have any professionalism.

> It merely means that the management views GPL violations as a low-probability calculated risk.

Which shows stupidity of that management, which thinks that legal violations are acceptable as long as they can view them as "low risk". Or it simply means it's a company of crooks. Either one is not a professional environment.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com