[bilalhusain]

> I've learned ... instead to simply say "I have a lot of experience with that technology" and leave it at that.

Shows Brendan's maturity.

I am not sure what should be the appropriate reaction or corrective measure in these situations. We should talk more about handling these unfair situations.

Someone else can become more successful building on top of one's open source project. On a resume, a top contributor and a minor contributor to open source project might have same weightage depending on how you present it - making the situation unfair for a person dedicatedly working on a single project (quality) vs minor contributor to multiple projects (quantity).

But deleting name and credits is wrong. An acknowledgement from the benefitting person (if not the recognition/reward) has far more positive impact on career than justifying to other's that your work was stolen.

It was a bit strange to read some of the initial negative comments. I see Brendan being a sport. I would argue that reading the story as a report against unknown persons at Sun makes more sense. I don't see much sense in blaming victim. And, in my opinion, the VIP had a good run but he isn't the bad guy here.

[brendangregg]

Thanks. There was a time when many observability products were adding latency heat maps, and at one conference expo floor there were three companies with latency heat maps on their screen at the same time, pitching them as a flagship feature. If I walked near them they'd start trying to explain them to me, and I never figured out an appropriate response. If I said "hey, great to see you added them, I invented these back at Sun" I'd get funny looks.

I think it's a small world, and everything is software, so the chance you'll bump into someone who wrote software you are using I think is pretty high. I was once trying to get my head around Andi Kleen's pmu-tools, and I had the github repo open in my browser on my laptop I was carrying, when the guy sitting next to me on a bus says he's Andi Kleen. (Ok, it was a bus taking Linux conference attendees to an event, not a random bus, but I still found it remarkable timing -- I was studying pmu-tools at that exact time!)

[FridayoLeary]

Still, it must be quite rewarding to know that everyone, no matter how big is using your tools. Before i knew anything about open source, i was somewhat surprised to see that even the giant that is Apple had open source licenses on their iPod. I assumed that apple had enough resources to develop all their own software, but no, they go just like everyone else and pick off-the-shelf software.

[bostonsre]

Thank you for sharing some of what you've learned with everyone in everything that you've published. I've been reading the latest addition of your systems performance book the past few weeks and it is amazing. You're work is pretty awe inspiring.

[bostonsre]

s/'re/r/g

[loup-vaillant]

> If I said "hey, great to see you added them, I invented these back at Sun" I'd get funny looks.

I don't understand. What kind of funny looks were they? Disbelief? Distrust? Fear of your mental health? Realization of having been lied to by their bosses (oops it wasn't really an internal tool)?

Also, what were the impact of those funny looks? How did they make you feel? Was there any longer term consequences of telling them you wrote the thing?

[brendangregg]

Disbelief and suspicion. And fear of my mental health I guess: What's wrong with this person?

Maybe I just don't look or dress or sound like what one would expect. But there's context here too: At the time it's when these things are flagship features and on the booth monitors, and the booth staff are explaining the virtues of these features to everyone they meet. They are making it a big deal of it at the time, so maybe that makes it even more unbelievable that the inventor would wander by at that moment.

Now imagine what would happen if companies had a thanks page along with the other boilerplate pages (contact us, about us) on their website. If you're making millions from a thing, thank the original person for that thing. (I put thanks pages at the end of my slide decks, it's not hard.) These interactions would go a lot better -- "my name is on your company website" -- and could lead to fruitful discussions and collaboration instead of weird looks.

[mijoharas]

Years back I was at a deep learning conference and was reading Andrej Karpathy's blog during one of the talks. Demis hassabis had come in slightly late and sat at the last free seat that happened to be next to me.

He leaned over, asked if I liked the blog, and (slightly proudly if I remember correctly) mentioned that deep mind had hired Andrej for an internship starting soon.

[Cthulhu_]

> I am not sure what should be the appropriate reaction or corrective measure in these situations. We should talk more about handling these unfair situations.

Start recording; have them, a big multinational with a massive legal department, admit to violating and stripping a license from source code. Then sue them. They should know better, and they're making billions off of other people's work. That in itself is fair enough, if the license permits it, but removing the license is crossing the line.

[simonh]

Oh it needs to be redressed and some knuckles soundly rapped, maybe someone even fired depending on the situation, but suing is a last, last, last resort. "WARNING: Do not feed the Lawyers".

[jclulow]

Be extremely careful recording conversations without consent in the US.

[apendleton]

Most jurisdictions in the US are one-party-consent. I think the tech crowd tends to have a skewed perception of recording consent rules because California happens to be one of the relatively few two-party-consent states, but it's the exception rather than the rule.

[nix23]

But in most country's you get sued first for illegally recording other peoples, and your proof is nothing worth because it's illegally obtained.

Better make detailed notes, who said what with time and date.

[steego]

Check the laws first. Some places only require one party (you the recorder) to consent.

[nix23]

>Some places only require one party (you the recorder) to consent

Some places...nord Korea? You the recorder have to consent?? I consent to myself that i record others without their knowledge?

[cge]

Laws around recording typically also cover cases where an outside person, who isn't a party in the conversation, is recording. The idea is that there are three possibilities: all parties in the conversation consent to recording, one of the parties consents (almost certainly the person who wants the recording), and none of the parties consent (ie, someone is spying on the conversation). One-party consent is legal in a variety of countries and regions of countries, while zero-party consent is illegal pretty much everywhere I know.

[nix23]

That's not what he said...if everyone consent that's called a interview.

[cromulent]

Most of Australia, for example.

https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/is-it-legal-to...

[nix23]

Sounds a bit more complicated then what you think it is:

>But the reality is that it is normally against the law to record a phone call without the other person’s consent.

>In fact, ‘covertly’ (secretly) using a listening device such as a mobile phone or digital recorder and publishing or otherwise distributing that material can amount to a criminal offence.

Recording private conversations:

>The laws only apply to ‘private conversations’, which is one where the parties may reasonably assume that they don’t want to be overheard by others.

>One of the exceptions to the prohibition against recording and/or publishing or distributing records of private conversations is where police officers have obtained what’s known as a ‘surveillance device warrant’ – also known as a ‘wire tap’ – which allows for the recorded material to be used for investigations and tendered in court provided, of course, that the material is relevant to the proceedings at hand.

Between jurisdictions:

>It is legal in all jurisdictions to record a phone call if ALL PARTIES to the phone call consent.

https://www.sydneycriminallawyers.com.au/blog/is-it-legal-to...

But hey if your a Police Officer working on a case your are correct, you don't need the Consent of the other person ;)

[dvlsg]

The majority of the states in the US have one-party consent too, I believe.

[kbelder]

Oregon.

[nix23]

Oregon...Australia...that says everything...

[stevebmark]

I didn't read maturity from this. I read timidness, conflict aversion, lack of standing up for oneself. Someone touring the world making hundreds of thousands of dollars, demoing your own software and claiming its their own? Violating your license setup, the foundation of OSS? I would have spelled it out as clearly as possible, including the legal implications, spelled out my assumption this person was claiming they worked hard on these tools when instead they did minimal stealing, and either talked about legal follow-up action or financial follow-up action. This is a time where anger, frustration, and being stern are justified.

[lowbloodsugar]

>I am not sure what should be the appropriate reaction or corrective measure in these situations.

When it happens internally, i.e. I catch someone doing it, then either it is a "first time offense" of the clueless, or it is the act of an unethical person who will be unrepentant. For the clueless, it might be that they undervalue themselves, and therefore undervalue assigning credit. The unethical person, however, understands what they are doing and is simply untrustworthy. They will also likely have a lawyer, because they've done this before. So it can be pricey to get rid of them, but get rid of them you must. They are poison to your team.