06 July
2004

Google Stole Code? Is Social Networking that Hard?

Orkut engineer needed a date fast?

I just saw on Cnet the following headline "Lawsuit accuses Google of code theft - Start-up claims an engineer stole software code to create the popular online social networking service Orkut.com." If true, I just don't get why those Google guys would have to rip off someone's social networking software. It's not rocket science or OS architecture we're talking about here - anyone can put together the basic mechanism using an off-the-shelf open source content management system, plus some python programming in about a month - 2 weeks if you full-time it. My son could do it, and he's 14!


Of course, I never understood the open source guys ripping off old OS work either, when the chip architectures had changed, and you could do something a lot faster, better, cheaper. But that's real work - not kiddie script stuff like we're hearing about here.


I guess some folks would rather spend years stealing than a few hours thinking. Or do you think the Orkut engineer was just desperate for a date and couldn't wait?



Posted by lynne : "Google Stole Code? Is Social Networking that Hard?" at 11:27 | link to entry
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