Summarizer

Right, this annoyed me too - it was stated w/o attribution as if novel. What is the name of the law when someone writes a think piece of "stuff I've learned" and fails to cite any of it to existing knowledge? Makes me wonder if (A) they do know it's not their idea, but they are just cool with plagiarism or (B) they don't know it's not their idea.

I don't know if there's a named law, but the word for not knowing and believing that something remembered is a novel idea is "cryptomnesia". Knowing that you know something by teaching is Feynman's method of understanding. Basically, on scanning, I don't particularly disagree with the content of the post. However, treating these things (many of which regularly show up here on HN) as being due to "14 years at Google" is a little misplaced. But, hey, it's 2026, CES is starting, and the hyperbole will just keep rocketing up and out.

This feels somewhat hypocritical coming from Addy. Addy Osmani plagiarized my code and 'apologized' years later by publishing an article on his website[1] that he has never linked to from his social media accounts. I cannot accept his apology until he actually syndicates it with his followers. Seems relevant to note this behavior in light of points "6. Your code doesn’t advocate for you. People do.", "7. The best code is the code you never had to write.", and "14. If you win every debate, you’re probably accumulating silent resistance." 1. https://addyosmani.com/an-apology-to-eli/

You posted the code to a public blog page, with no attribution in the code or request of attribution from others, no license, and seemingly intended to share it freely with the world. Then you got an apology, and a second apology. I'm confused about what you think you're owed? The explanation makes perfect sense, the headers were obviously just copied with no malicious intent. What is it that is still bothering you about this?

> no license, and seemingly intended to share it freely with the world No license means you don’t intend to share it “freely”, since you didn’t share any rights. By default, you don’t own things people shared on the internet just because it’s there. That being said I’ve even seen people with licenses in their repos who get mad when people used their code, there’s just no telling and it’s best to just treat random sources of code as anathema.

Per Eli's own comment here, the original copied code was straight up public domain and thus does not even require attribution. https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/pull/684#issuecomment...

I'm curious if you would have the same opinion about code shared on stack overflow?

I think GP is referring to the fact that an author’s work is copyright protected by default, and a license is needed to permit others to use freely [1]. StackOverflow posts are licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 [2]. [1]: https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html [2]: https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing (Disclaimer: Just commenting on GP’s statement about “no license”, not on the specific disagreement or apology mentioned above which I am unfamiliar with.)

It's worth noting that the code in question was also open sourced and permissively licensed by the original author as he stated in the thread[1]. I guess this isn't really about licensing at all, just the original author seems to think it was rude, and also doesn't want to accept any of the apologies that have been offered. [1]: https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/pull/684#issuecomment...

Not to make excuses for plagiarism, I am looking at the code itself and somewhat scratching my head since it seems quite...trivial? I don't mean to belittle the effort but at least in terms of volume of code and level of effort, I wouldn't recognize it as mine if someone had copied it from my work and passed it off as theirs. Regarding the charge of plagiarism, is it possible that the PR attribution reflects someone eager to contribute something to a larger effort as opposed to simply trying to "steal" someone else's work? One could reasonably interpret the PR and attribution as "I integrated this code into this project thus I am taking credit for it". In other words there is probably a stronger charge for misguided clout-chasing than plagiarisms.

That code from your post is fairly standard image load handling, but the notable part is this line: self.apng_supported = ctx.getImageData(0, 0, 1, 1).data[3] === 0; Unless I'm misunderstanding, it's basically a "neat trick", like using ~~ for rounding or a fast inverse square root. Is the intent that everyone who makes use of that trick is supposed to link back to your blog?

addy rubs me the wrong way more often than not, but you really gotta let this go friend.

Oh my god. I have never seen an about/bio page even half as gross and cringey as his. https://addyosmani.com/bio/ It's so obscene that it seems like it's a parody > Colleagues often remark on Osmani’s humility LOL! Who writes these things about themselves with a straight face?! It also shows that taking credit for others' work is 100% his MO. > Osmani’s team created Workbox, a set of libraries for generating service worker scripts that handle caching and offline functionality with minimal fuss. Workbox simplified what used to be a complex task of writing low-level code to intercept network requests. No, Jeff Posnick (who I suppose technically was on addy's team) created workbox and it has been basically abandonned since he left Google. Or was it Sundar Pichai's team who made workbox? Or does Brendan Eich deserve the credit? I have to assume the rest of the bio, and his career, has been built off of usurping credit. He always rubbed me the wrong way, and this vindicates that sense. What a psychopath!

FWIW, the actual apology is well written.

Although little note at the very end explains why: > This note is in response to emails from Eli Grey to Chrome leadership from October, 2023 In other words, he wrote this because he was forced to.

Eli also went back and changed his original 11 years later response from: > No problem; just remember that modifying someone else's code does not grant you any copyright to that code. to > I don't agree with your opinion that inserting existing code into a template (the API) for a framework (Modernizr) warrants a notice of credit, even with a few changes to the code being inserted. Seems almost a little crazy to hold onto something that long and return to edit your comment 11 years later. https://github.com/Modernizr/Modernizr/pull/684#issuecomment...

that's going a bit far, no?

15 years on that trivial piece of code man. Reminds me of Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground".

Thanks for sharing, I found the blogpost hypocritical even without knowing about this

"i cannot accept this apology unless.." you got a written apology already, what else do you want? a post of this in all of his socmed accounts? him telling this story to his kids at dinner table and bedtime stories? at his eulogy, obituary, and his grave? what's your life mission now, to post this little drama of yours on each and every content he puts out? was that code your best achievement to date? did it stole millions from you and ruined your life? grow the fuck up dude

Plagiarizing code is kind of a redundant concept nowadays in the era of LLM coding engines. It's a safe bet there's always copilot plagiarizing someone's code on one of its users' machines, both being oblivious to it.

That's a bit different from knowingly taking a friend or former partner's code and putting "by Your Name" on top of it before sharing it with outsiders

Jesus, bro. Let bygones be bygones. How long is this ago? It's just code. And what the code did, is not even fundamental. It's not like you cured cancer.

I tend to see my code in these terms as well, it's not dear to me. But I'd never presume to tell someone how to feel over having their work stolen (and I'm using that term because that's how I'm sure Mr Grey felt).

just because people think or feel things, doesn't make those things valid (and certainly not prudent)

Oh my god. I have never seen an about/bio page even half as gross and cringey as this. It's so obscene that it reads like a parody > Colleagues often remark on Osmani’s humility LOL! Who writes these things about themselves with a straight face?! It also shows that taking credit for others' work is 100% his MO. > Osmani’s team created Workbox, a set of libraries for generating service worker scripts that handle caching and offline functionality with minimal fuss. Workbox simplified what used to be a complex task of writing low-level code to intercept network requests. No, Jeff Posnick (who I suppose technically was on addy's team) created workbox and it has been basically abandonned since he left Google. I have to assume the rest of the bio, and his career, has been built off of usurping credit. He always rubbed me the wrong way, and this vindicates that sense. What a psychopath!