

Microsoft Statement Regarding MSN China Joint Venture’s Juku Feature - tshtf
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2009/dec09/12-15statement.mspx

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angelbob
That's a remarkably simple, upfront and honest apology. I'm not normally a big
Microsoft fan, but it sounds like they're handling this one well. Go them!

~~~
brown9-2
I agree, but perhaps I'm missing something - are they actually saying anywhere
in that statement that they are cutting ties with the vendor that copied the
code?

It seems as if they are only saying they will be suspending the beta of this
application and re-evaluating their practices towards application code
supplied by third-party vendors.

~~~
anigbrowl
That was the impression I got, although we have to consider the possibility
that it was one overworked or lazy programmer at a company that does multiple
other projects.

Anyway, props for the straight-up _mea culpa_.

~~~
rbanffy
Actually, it was more like an _eius culpa_...

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credo
One of the biggest changes I had seen at Microsoft (in my last few years at
Microsoft) was the excessive reliance on outsourcing. Groups that relied
excessively on vendors had a different culture from other groups.

The blatant copying (in the Plurk case) is a particularly egregious example of
what can happen with too much outsourcing, but the impact of policies (that
treat product development as an outsourcable commodity) over the past several
years extends beyound this example and hurts overall quality.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
That's not necessarily fair. When I was there, it was a hell of a lot easier
to get some cash to hire an external vendor than to get more headcount.
Perhaps a penny-wise but pound-foolish situation, but it is what it is.

Also, there are times when a group without development resources (e.g. a
content group or an evangelism group) wants to build a tool or a website. They
don't really have an option but to outsource its creation.

~~~
credo
When you're talking about groups without dev-resources, you're not talking
about product-development groups.

By "product development", I specifically meant product development and core
teams at Microsoft.

On your other point, I think we can agree that penny-wise pound foolish isn't
a good policy for companies like Microsoft <g>

Btw to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that all outsourcing is bad. I managed
one small outsourced project in the 90s and was very happy with the results.
However, imo, today's Microsoft does too much outsourcing.

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beilabs
Good job Microsoft. I worked for vendors in China before and I'm well aware of
their practices...

So now Microsoft have no "plurk" service, why not buy the startup and
integrate them into their offering? Wins all around.

~~~
potatolicious
> why not buy the startup and integrate them into their offering?

Isn't Plurk banned from China? I would imagine there may be some legal
wrangling with the Chinese government to get a now-purchased Plurk back onto
that market.

~~~
beilabs
Plurk is banned by domain, however if it came under the Microsoft domain it
may be a different story. Has anyone heard of any Microsoft products through
Microsoft China being banned?

~~~
Elepsis
China has blocked access to products by Microsoft, Google and others in the
past, though in most cases they eventually got unblocked.

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pavs
I don't like microsoft and I like this. Also kudos goes to "jf" for acting
fast: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=994647>

~~~
jf
Thanks! I'm glad that Microsoft's response is being received well.

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unohoo
Sometimes, admitting that 'we fucked up' is simply the best apology / remedy.

~~~
benhoyt
I'm curious: are you implying that that's what this apology does, or that the
apology is lacking?

~~~
unohoo
the former.

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mrjbq7
Microsoft has essentially admitted that the independent contractor was guilty
of intellectual property theft. I would assume that any revenue the contractor
earned would be at jeopardy if Plurk were to pursue legal action.

If Microsoft made any money through the Juku service, the same should be true
of there as well.

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socratees
That's just fantastic. Well done Microsoft.

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padmanabhan01
This episode, I guess is the best thing that could have happened to plurk. For
all the publicity I mean.

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apinstein
In my experience this type of thing is unfortunately very common in China.

One of my earliest commercial software applications (for Palm OS) was
decompiled and re-packaged as a competitor to our product by a Chinese
company. When you looked at the binary of their product, it had most of our
function names in it. Also, it had most of our bugs. These were weird bugs
that no one implementing it on their own would've ever replicated.

We contact the company and they said that they honored our work and loved our
product and didn't copy it and "yada yada happy-go-lucky" which was total BS.

Sadly since they were in China and our only real option (according to lawyers)
was to sue the company in the US that sold it, which unfortunately was an
online software retailer that was 30%+ of our revenues. Scratch that.

Thus we just had to deal with it.

I am not sure if it's cultural or what, but I largely avoid China as much as
possible now.

Fool me once, shame on me. Don't get fooled again.

------
_pius
This apology is not some amazing achievement; this is simply what they were
supposed to do.

I'm not ready to heap a ton of praise on a major company just for following
basic ethics and PR in the wake of a scandal they caused. Just how low of a
bar are we trying to set here?

~~~
city41
Microsoft didn't cause any scandal, the contractor they hired did. Yes, of
course, MS is responsible; but MS was also a victim here.

~~~
caffeine
Nope. MS is responsible, period. People seem to be amputating MS China from MS
as a whole, as if somehow MS were screwed by the Chinese or something. It
doesn't work that way.

It's like if I murdered someone and then got away by saying "I apologize for
the misbehavior of my murderous personality - I will not be doing business
with it in the future." Doesn't work that way.

~~~
city41
No, people are amputating MS from the contractor they hired, because MS was
screwed by that contractor. It _does_ work that way.

~~~
_pius
You should keep this in context; Plurk is (one of) their prime competitor(s).
Microsoft was almost certainly negligent in allowing this to come to market.
The fault doesn't fall solely on the contractor.

In any case, my point is that Microsoft didn't do anything especially noble by
apologizing and taking the site down in the face of blatant plagiarism. If it
were noble, you'd be able to name some less noble but at least as self-
interested actions Microsoft could have taken. I can't think of one.

Microsoft doing practically anything besides what this would have only hurt
them more.

~~~
city41
I'm not talking about Microsoft being noble. I'm talking about Microsoft being
screwed by the contractor. Microsoft wanted to compete against Plurk, they
hire a contractor to help in this, and now where are they? Their site is
suspended indefinitely. Microsoft is now significantly worse off now than
before they even started this.

Should MS have watched the contractor more closely? Probably. But in the end,
it's reasonable to expect that if you hire someone to do work for you, that
they're going to do it ethically and legally, even in China. Of course MS
takes all responsibility here. That's not even in question. But put yourself
in MS's shoes. Yes they are the largest software company in the world, but
ignore that. Put yourself in their shoes. You hire someone to do something.
That someone does it illegally and deviously, you have no choice but to
completely rip out everything they did. You just got screwed.

In the end, it even looks like Plurk may benefit from all of this, there is
now a lot more people out there that have heard of them.

~~~
_pius
_I'm talking about Microsoft being screwed by the contractor._

I don't disagree with that. All I was saying is that the tremendous kudos some
people are giving Microsoft for this response seem to be misplaced.

~~~
city41
Which I don't disagree with either. So we are basically preaching to each of
our respective choirs :)

~~~
_pius
Fair enough. :)

------
malkia
Microsoft just made my day. That's such an honest direct reply. No obscurity
whatsover.

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nzmsv
This is the second recent problem MS had with a contractor stealing source
code (the other was the Windows 7 image tool violating the GPL).

I'm sure Microsoft handles lots of outsourced projects, and they can't review
every last bit of code. Why not put in a system where violations like these
can be reported to someone at MS?

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yosho
So does Plurk actually get anything out of this? (Besides the free publicity)

~~~
pavs
They get to stop Microsoft from copying their stuff.

~~~
adw
I doubt anyone'll be discussing financial settlements in public, but...

~~~
kprobst
Perhaps they should sue Microsoft for irreparable financial damages... like
the RIAA does to file sharers? After all, no one was deprived of any physical
property as far as I can tell.

~~~
pavs
I disagree. I don't like Microsoft, but they found out their mistake and fixed
it. Its not like Microsoft higher management consciously decided to this, it
was done by a third party contractor who was hired to work on the project -
who was specifically advised NOT to do this in the contract they signed. They
still did it. If anyone should sue anyone, it should be Microsoft suing the
contractor.

~~~
kprobst
I was being sarcastic :)

------
est
Why don't Microsoft do some PR with the Chinese government to make Plurk
accessible in China again.

~~~
rms
Because Microsoft doesn't have that power.

~~~
mrtron
They have that kind of bankroll though.

~~~
luchak
What?

The Chinese government has issues with sites containing user-generated
content. Neither Microsoft nor anyone else can resolve these issues just by
throwing money at the problem. Getting Plurk back into China would likely
involve making substantial changes to how the site is run: for example,
demonstrating that they can and will take down or block posts at the request
of the Chinese government within a specific amount of time after the request
is made.

