
Popular startup stole my code – now what? - x1024
Hi, I want to ask HN for advice - a somewhat popular startup recently took a page straight out of Dilbert.
Is this common?
Should I do something about that?<p>I went on an interview at flipps.com and wrote some &quot;sample&quot; code to fix their horrible, memory-hungry iOS app. I only improved a single view of the app(because I suspected something like this might happen).<p>The company didn&#x27;t wish to move forward and hire me to fix the rest of the app. I didn&#x27;t think much of it and thought that was the end of that.<p>But to my surprise they immediately <i>shipped my sample code to production</i>!
Now, I am aware of the legal status of code written as a &quot;sample&quot; and they probably don&#x27;t owe me money for it.<p>I&#x27;m not looking for vengeance, and I&#x27;m not really all that angry. There&#x27;s more code where that came from and I won&#x27;t starve without their business.
But this an unethical way to go about software development.<p>And it is especially dishonest toward their investors(who think they&#x27;ve made an investment in a technologically-savvy company, not just software thieves).<p>If you wish to drop them a line, the site is flipps.com, and their main investor is http:&#x2F;&#x2F;launchhub.com.
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computer
Wait until they are close to exiting and then threaten to sue for 5%, settle
for 2%. It's the absolute worst timing for a startup to get hit with something
like this.

Of course, only do it if you're actually in the right, so check with a lawyer
first.

~~~
hga
Indeed. At any investment event, they're exquisitely vulnerable to the threat
of a lawsuit.

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jmathai
In all honesty it's probably not worth pursuing. It's unethical and if they
operate other parts of their business this way one can only hope they
eventually implode.

I had a similar experience. I founded a company 3 years ago where we open
source the majority of what we do. We entered into a discussion with a well
funded (>$40M) "startup" about how they could use our service as a
whitelabeled SaaS offering to their customers.

After a few promising exchanges including a Skype call with their Founder and
VP of Engineering they stopped returning all of my attempts to see what the
next steps should be. Turns out the reason was because they forked a private
repository of the work we did - web, iOS and Android.

We found out they're using our code because they didn't even bother taking out
our Crashalytics code and we started to get a bunch of pings. To this day
their iOS app still uses our "yellow" color for toggle buttons.

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcpbbnbltm2bmq6/Photo%20Mar%2026%2...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/dcpbbnbltm2bmq6/Photo%20Mar%2026%2C%203%2013%2004%20PM.png)

They didn't violate any terms of our license (MIT) but I lost some faith in
humanity because of what they did :).

\--

My company is Trovebox - code @
[https://github.com/photo](https://github.com/photo)

~~~
lugg
I don't get it, this isn't similar at all. Why did you lose faith in humanity
because they did exactly what you told them they could do?

> our license (MIT)

Why did you MIT your code if you didn't want this to happen?

GPL exists for the exact reason you're bringing up here.

Sorry I don't mean this to be negative in anyway, I just don't get the thought
pattern here.

Disclaimer: fan of bsd/mit/asl style licenses, feel gpl is better suited for
things which need protection from the big players and enforce participation.

While I can understand your pain I feel it is a necessary pain for the greater
good to have unrestrictive open source. (companies can always
donate/contribute in other ways after the fact etc)

~~~
jmathai
It is similar because of how it happened. There are lots of people using the
code for various reasons and many of them participate in the community or
contribute patches.

No one else that I know of has engaged in a conversation and then refused to
reply to any further correspondence while at the same time asking questions to
the community under pseudonyms.

Like the OP what the other company did was probably legal. That doesn't make
something okay or right. Likewise (as I admitted) this other company didn't
break any laws. But that wasn't the point.

You know what would have been okay? If they said, "look, we have some
engineers that are going to have a go with the code - let's keep in touch" or
"we are going to fork the code but will submit patches back". That is the
spirit of the MIT license. Be civil.

Hope that doesn't come off as negative either :).

------
seivan
Not a single Engineer on their team [http://www.flipps.com/flipps-
team/](http://www.flipps.com/flipps-team/) \- such overhead.

~~~
god_bless_texas
what is a CAO anyway?

~~~
cesarpereira
Chief Administrative Officer
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_administrative_officer](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_administrative_officer)

That position existed at my company several years ago before being acquired.
Rumor was it used to be a more popular position back in the day. The company
was over 100 years old.

------
mattwritescode
To be honest I would just keep clam and carry on. I really doubt you can do
anything about it.

Why?

Proof. You say they took your code but whats to say they already had something
similar in development. Without actually seeing the code changes you are just
making assumptions (although it does sound suspicious).

Personally I would say take the moral high ground. Just forget it and move on.
A lawyer will take you money and you will probably be worse off than before.

~~~
BrindsleyQuives
_> >To be honest I would just keep clam and carry on..._

Yes. In times of stress, I too often seek solace in mollusc husbandry.

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palakchokshi
If you didn't sign an NDA when you interviewed post your code fix here or on
your blog. That should bring some visibility to your "cause". Otherwise it is
your word against theirs.

~~~
x1024
Here are the parts not covered by an NDA:

* Our initial email communication.

* The description of my task.

* The schedule for our meeting (in-office, where the code was written)

* The bill that my consulting company sent them, including a detailed description of the issue and the applied fix.

* Their refusal to continue working with my company.

* Their shipping of a new version two days after the interview.

I know it's all circumstantial. That's why the title doesn't say "I'm starting
legal action against a popular startup".

Again, I'm not out for blood. But I _do_ want to spread the word and raise
awareness.

------
Ryel
Wow that looks like the most boring, un-inspiring group of people I've ever
seen. You are a lucky man (or woman) to have walked away without a job.

------
poopicus
How do you know they shipped your code?

~~~
x1024
Because it was shipped about 48 hours after I wrote it, and I see details in
it that are specific to my implementation.

In fact, if you use their iOS app(especially on the more memory-consuming
devices like an iPad Retina)you'll notice that the app reproducibly crashes on
_all_ screens. Except one.

~~~
sdesol
"reproducibly crashes on all screens. Except one"

This reminds me of the story about a large telecom company in North America
and one in China. They were able to show that their code was stolen because
they had the same bug.

~~~
raarts
Exactly. My product was stolen by a competitor. In court I could show their
product had the same bug as mine. That was the start of their downfall. They
bankrupted.

------
arikrak
A popular startup once stole some content I created, but I decided it wasn't
an amount that was worth suing over right then.

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bozho
What bothers me is that there are no technical people on their "team" page.
Only an "R&D manager".

~~~
pawn
I counted four CS majors on their page...

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tedchs
I don't understand why a company would expose their source code to a job
applicant who was not yet hired?

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swalsh
You have their email, how long was the interview? Just send them an invoice
for your typical hourly rate...

~~~
x1024
I did, but they just said they are not interested and paid nothing. The whole
thing took most of a work day, all of it spent writing code.

~~~
jason_slack
Can I ask why you agreed to spend "most of a work day" on a "sample"? I have
heard others saying they spent a "few" hours on a technical test but I think
most of a work day triggers alarms for me.

------
centdev
How are you sure they shipped an update with your code

