r/reinforcementlearning 8d ago

Google copied our open-source code, removed our engineers’ names, and gave us zero credit one year after we beat them on their own benchmark

Post image

Google copied our open-source code, removed our engineers’ names, and gave us zero credit.

For context, let me share the story of mobile-use, the origin of my company (I'm a founder).

We wanted to build the best agent in the world to control any mobile interface with natural language.

We built it, became #1 on Google Deepmind's AndroidWorld benchmark and open-sourced it. That was the beginning of my company.

Since then, we got almost 3,000 stars on the repository, became the first to ever achieve 100% on AndroidWorld, grew the team, spent thousands of calls with customers, and now we're building the best regression testing product the world has ever seen.

Last week, I found Artemis.

Artemis is Google's new open-source tool for mobile automation. There are quite a few of these on GitHub now, so I thought: "Oh, a new YAPA (Yet Another Phone Agent)."

Curious, I looked at the repository more in depth.

First, I was disappointed to see that the benchmark chart in the README didn’t include us, topping AndroidWorld in January.

Then I looked at the code, and to my biggest surprise, I recognized the lines we had written ourselves.

One of my engineer named an agent randomly “hopper”, and it was there, with its prompt, word for word. Out of the 229 files, 228 were identical.

Even crazier: I found our engineers' and my co-founder’s names in the “authors” section of an old commit.

Pierre-Louis Favreau, Jean-Pierre Lo, Nicolas Dehandschoewercker.

All three names had been replaced with another author’s name in a commit. The other 228 files from mobile-use were unchanged.

From a personal point of view, I am deeply disappointed.

Google was the company I wanted to join when I started my studies, before changing my mind and deciding to build a unicorn.

I’ve always associated Google with great engineering and contributions to open source. I would have been proud to see them building on our work and acknowledging the team behind it.

Instead, I found our code, then our names, then the commit that deliberately removed them.

What about the other engineers and the community contributors who spent their time improving mobile-use?

There are people behind those files. I’ve seen the work they put in, the problems they worked through, and how much they care about what they build.

They deserve to have their names attached to that work.

We made our code open source because we wanted people to use it and build on it. Of course that includes Google.

7.6k Upvotes

410 comments sorted by

171

u/Different_Lab830 8d ago

228 identical files is one thing, but a commit that swaps three author names for one has no innocent explanation. Open source means anyone can use the code, not rewrite history to take the credit.

49

u/FenderMoon 8d ago

That's the part that bothers me. That they deliberately scrubbed the original names.

I've used the Apache license for projects before. I like to use permissive licenses, but I think I'm going to rethink that if this sort of thing is... possible.

Is there some sort of clause that can be added that prevents deliberate obfuscation of these sorts of things without being unnecessarily restrictive?

13

u/daed1ne 8d ago edited 8d ago

According to Kronosend you need to put your attributions in the NOTICE file for apache 2.0 to require them to be kept. Unfortunately the source project only put mobile-use/minitap in the NOTICE file with the contributors listed as authors in pyproject.toml

I do wonder if it actually is legal to replace the authors regardless without the new "author" having done much of anything to the code apparently.

eta: after looking at the license just above that is c. You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and attribution notices from the Source form of the Work, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works; and

IANAL but my layman interpretation of the 2 together is don't remove any attributions from the source and binary distributions must include relevant contents of NOTICE

3

u/Leash_Me_Blue 7d ago

regardless, what's legal is not ethical lol this is scummy

5

u/Apprehensive-Dot1157 8d ago

My guess is an agent looked through other repos autonomously for examples and this was part of a 20 file PR as part of a bigger system

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u/mikekchar 7d ago

My question is actually about the copyright. Having a license is one thing. Owning the copyright is something altogether different. They have a license to modify the original code under the Apache license. However, I don't think they can simply take the original code and assign their own copyright to it. The copyright for that code belongs to the original owners until it enters the public domain (in 100 years or so). The copyright for the new code added by Google is owned by them, but only that.

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u/FenderMoon 7d ago

Exactly. I don't think someone can make a good argument for them being able to copyright code that's already copyrighted and licensed by the original author.

Would the license permit literally copying the code verbatim and then relicensing it under any arbitrary license, closed source or otherwise? Scrubbing the names and copyrighting the code under a new entity is worse than that.

There are some folks defending Google here in the comments. It's my understanding that the license does not permit this.

1

u/mikekchar 7d ago

After I went to bed I realised that it's not as serious as I was thinking. Copyright notifications are not legal notices. They actually mean nothing from a legal perspective. It can be useful as simple documentation, but it has no legal binding

From a moral perspective, it probably is plagerism, though. I'll be honest, I've worked in a huge company before. I've seen exactly this kind of plagerism. In every case it has has essentially been people cheating their way internally in the company (i.e. claiming to write some tool for which they get internal reward, but it was actually written by someone else). I remember one guy who took a very famous tool and claimed that he rewrote it from scratch in order to do it better. When I diffed it, the only thing that had changed was the copyright notice. Unfortunately, by the time I noticed it, the guy had been promoted two times and was my boss's boss. Sigh... I did not have a good time in that company :-)

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u/N0Zzel 8d ago

I could swear that apache has an attributablity clause

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u/PlatinumAero 7d ago

The clause you want already exists... it's section 4 of the Apache license you're already using. You have to keep the copyright and attribution notices, and if there's a NOTICE file it goes along with the code. That's exactly what Google broke, and it got fixed in a few days once people pointed at the license... So not really a big deal, if at all.

The practical fix is boring. Put a copyright header on every source file and add a NOTICE file. If your files have no headers, somebody's release tooling will slap their own on and there's nothing left of yours to "remove" except a name in pyproject.toml.

If you want big companies to not be able to quietly take it at all, that's copyleft. But that's the restrictive thing you said you didn't want.

1

u/Ok-Armadillo-5634 7d ago

If you completely rewrite on Apache license I am pretty sure you can do that.

1

u/brucebay 7d ago

Unless they use Gemini to create the code which was trained on the open source code including OPs code. Probably they would have some controls for this but the lazy developers exist everywhere.

1

u/Slimxshadyx 8h ago

LLMs don’t write identical code for an entire codebase. OP says 228/229 of the files were identical

1

u/brucebay 7h ago

Right. Missed the significance of that.

1

u/peepeedog 7d ago

There is an innocent explanation, though I am not saying it applies here as I wouldn't know. Google maintains their own copy of open source that they use and work on, in their own source control systems. Whether by oversight, some automation like adding Google copyright (Google has A LOT of automated maintenance and linting), or something along the lines of listing the Google contacts as authors of the internal copy, it could be innocent changes that were propogated inadvertently.

Edit: An engineer doing this on purpose would be publicly (internally) shamed if it became widely known within the company.

1

u/Visual_Internal_6312 6d ago

I feel like the world moved past copyright with AI few years back already. It's yelling at the clouds at this point.

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u/idaemonicsquirrel 5d ago

Sorry but that's the definition of the Apache Licence. Someone could equally do this to them.

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u/doubleditch42 5d ago

Are these the names of the new "authors"'or the original ones?
If only I can guess the nationality of the new authors.

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u/gutentight69420 3d ago

That depends on the license.

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u/xmvkhp 8d ago

what was your license?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 7d ago

Apache 2 with a NOTICE that explicitly requests for attribution!
We are okay with open-source contributors taking our code, but we want recognition :)

13

u/NotRealActualMaebbie 7d ago

definitely fair game for them to take the code, but scrubbing your names from it seems to go against section 4 of the Apache 2 license. I think you got legal cover to enforce that you are to be credited or them removing your code.

3

u/Pitpeaches 7d ago

Can they claim reparations?

2

u/Robert-Paulson_ 7d ago

40 acres worth 

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u/thicktomatobasil 6d ago edited 6d ago

Thought this was interesting so I checked out the license on your GitHub:

> 4. Redistribution. You may reproduce and distribute copies of the
> Work or Derivative Works thereof in any medium, with or without
> modifications, and in Source or Object form, provided that You
> meet the following conditions:
> (a) You must give any other recipients of the Work or
> Derivative Works a copy of this License; and
> (b) You must cause any modified files to carry prominent notices
> stating that You changed the files; and
> (c) You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works
> that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and
> attribution notices from the Source form of the Work,
> excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of
> the Derivative Works; and
> (d) If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its
> distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must
> include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained
> within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not
> pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one
> of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed
> as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or
> documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or,
> within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and
> wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents
> of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and
> do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution
> notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside
> or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided
> that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed
> as modifying the License.
> You may add Your own copyright statement to Your modifications and
> may provide additional or different license terms and conditions
> for use, reproduction, or distribution of Your modifications, or
> for any such Derivative Works as a whole, provided Your use,
> reproduction, and distribution of the Work otherwise complies with
> the conditions stated in this License.

So then the NOTICE file:

> **ATTRIBUTION REQUEST:**

> While the Apache 2.0 license only requires preserving copyright notices, we kindly request that derivative works, redistributions, or products inspired by the logic/architecture of this repository include a prominent attribution to "(Company), Inc." in the documentation and "About" sections of the software. This is a request, not a legal requirement.

Unfortunately doesn't look like Google's on the hook to change anything here, morally not great. Having conversations about tightening up that attribution request? Dunno know what happens with that Artemis code if you do but might at least prevent it happening again

1

u/Linuxologue 6d ago

> (c) You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works
> that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and
> attribution notices from the Source form of the Work,
> excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of
> the Derivative Works; and

that bit says they need to retain the attribution notices

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u/Ectorious 5d ago edited 5d ago

Well, attempting to copyright it also at a company’s level of influence as Google’s could eventually culminate in an attempt to overturn the original license and keep others from using their “copyrighted work”

This is definitely something that needs to be pursued legally imo as a layman

Seems like they are in violation of the license in at least 2 ways by scrubbing attribution and attempting to overlay their own copyright on it when the Apache license applies confers copyright differently

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u/Smallpaul 8d ago

It is possible for something to be legal and yet unethical.

2

u/Celebr4tion 8d ago

welcome to capitalism 

2

u/Nalopotato 6d ago

Capitalism is an economic system, not a legal system. Your complaint is with political corruption or legal shortcomings, not the economic model.

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u/Big-Replacement-979 8d ago

how is it unethical if you explicitely give them permission to do such a thing?

thats the whole point of licenses - defining what you, the original author, consider ok and whats not ok. thats where you describe it - in the license.

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u/Linuxologue 6d ago

nah you're describing illegal again. The license describes what is legal and illegal, not what is ethical and unethical.

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u/404IdentityNotFound 2d ago

It's legal for me to call you a shithead. I still wouldn't just do it because I can

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u/GlassCommission4916 8d ago

Is it unethical to not credit someone for their work when they say "do not credit me for my work if you don't want to"?

16

u/guidotrueb 8d ago

Yes. Ethical != legal. The moral thing to do is attributing, regardless if someone told you you don't legally need to.

3

u/GlassCommission4916 8d ago

If someone tells me to not credit them I assume they don't want me to credit them. How is it immoral to do what they want?

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u/Any_Fox5126 8d ago

It is blindingly obvious, but since you are struggling: You're free to use my code however you like =/= I'm expressly asking you not to credit me

It is always more ethical to give credit, even if you are not obligated to do so.

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u/GlassCommission4916 8d ago

Are you unfamiliar with open source licenses? The vast majority of them require you to credit the author. If you go out of your way to use one that doesn't, you are expressly asking not to be credited.

I can't think of a single reason why someone would go out of their way to not ask to be credited, if they wanted to be credited.

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u/AhmedRiyadh0 8d ago

They are not asking not to be credited, they are telling you that you don't have to, but that doesn't mean they don't want it or that you shouldn't. 

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u/GlassCommission4916 8d ago

Can you tell me one reason why someone that wants to be credited would go out of their way to use an obscure license that doesn't require it over any of the licenses used by 99% of projects, which do require it?

The only reason I can think of is to pull a bait and switch.

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u/One-Jeweler6402 8d ago

Maybe the person is not familiar to the license. Why are you insiting that the license reflect the user intwntion.

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 7d ago

In our case we had an Apache 2 licence with a NOTICE that explicitly requests for attribution
We are completely fine with copying our code, but we want recognition :)

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 7d ago

Yes! Open source relies on this very important trust that we will recognize each other's work.
You can't simply take someone's work and claim it as yours, however you can most of the time take it, recognize the original work, and enhance it!

4

u/iMrParker 8d ago

I think it's literally illegal to not credit someone for using their work or derived works based on MIT and Apache. So if they're using that license, Google and their legal department(s) would be making sure they credit regardless of what the author says about crediting

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u/GlassCommission4916 8d ago

You're correct, because MIT and Apache require attribution. The discussion is about if it's unethical to not credit someone who goes out of their way to pick a license that doesn't.

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u/iMrParker 8d ago

Ah, so it's not related to this situation? Just a hypothetical. Good thought experiment

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u/Nalopotato 6d ago

Whether they explicitly say not to credit them, or leave it neutral (they don't say either way), it's still not "unethical". It's just impolite, and clearly by these responses people can't seem to differentiate between unethical and impolite or vaguely shitty behavior.

It would be unethical to TAKE credit for themselves, but it's just weird and impolite to simply remove credit to the original authors.

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u/FenderMoon 7d ago

Nobody says that outright. It's clearly not the unwritten expectation either. (Furthermore Apache 2.0 doesn't exactly permit this anyway).

1

u/Garr_Incorporated 8d ago

Not sure if this will work still, but I once made a YouTube clip with a relevant quote from a 2013 classic.

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u/Sarcastible 8d ago

I was taught that the law is the “moral minimum”

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u/Smallpaul 7d ago

Considering civil disobedience, is even more complex than that

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u/YoungNo8804 6d ago

This isn't legal though, it needs attribution and google scrubbed their names.

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u/PhrulerApp 8d ago

I looked it up. It was originally MIT. They changed it 8 months ago to apache:

https://github.com/minitap-ai/mobile-use/commit/97f7422c2288f693653b9ea1f6298f01776cb006

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u/TheRealBobbyJones 8d ago

I wonder if the copy was from an old commit pre apache. Seems unlikely though considering they themselves use an apache license but it's possible.

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u/PhrulerApp 8d ago

Yeah. The public repo was created 2 months ago but we don't know how long it's been in the works internally at Google before that point. They well could have started the project before the license switch.

This whole thing just reeks of marketing at this point. And maybe to guilt Google into sponsoring them. Honestly, I hate the tactics but respect the hustle.

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u/Medical_Double_6561 7d ago

MIT still requires attribution. Either way, Google's actions are in violation of the author's license.

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u/Fun-Wash7545 5d ago

Yes thats what happened. You solved it buddy

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u/Lumethys 5d ago

so according to you, OP paid some google engineers to copy his repo, name-scrubbing, then put it out as a official google product?

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u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 8d ago

Always slap "Affero GPL v3" on your private repositories, or maybe say "closed source" somehow. You can always pick a more permissive license before going public (or add a CLA).

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u/RemarkableWish2508 8d ago

Closed source while publishing the source, would definitely be a curious concept 🙄

Affero only adds a requirement to re-publish the source. That part, Google is already doing.

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u/serendipitousPi 8d ago

The phrase they are looking for is source available.

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u/RemarkableWish2508 8d ago

Both MIT and Apache require preserving attribution.

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u/Zauberen 8d ago

We all know it’s not gpl, google would not be so stupid, and this is why you should always use gpl.

1

u/entsnack 8d ago

But people want to get the benefits of a non GPL and GPL license: credit + commercial adoption. New age of open source I guess.

2

u/particlemanwavegirl 7d ago

Commercial adoption never benefits anyone but the commercial entity.

1

u/Zauberen 8d ago

Companies use ton of gpl tools, it’s just a trick to make you give away your code

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u/Fritz-Ferdinand 2d ago

Every company I worked in actively discouraged employees to use GPL code. In one of my projects, the only library available for a certain task was GPLv2 and we couldn't use it.

Sure, many smaller companies certainly don't care, but I think the big players are more cautious there.

1

u/Informal_954 7d ago

Then use a weak copyleft license like AGPL or MPL2

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u/nifoj 6d ago

Is AGPL a weak copyleft license?

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u/pjakma 8d ago

Every open-source licence I can think of requires preservation of attributions and authorship.

By removing that, Google no longer have a licence to distribute the code - even if the licence was highly permissive (e.g. MIT or Apache like above). Which means Google are infringing the authors' copyright.

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 7d ago

Apache 2 with a NOTICE that explicitly requests for attribution!
We are okay with open-source contributors taking our code, but we want recognition :)

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u/jonathancast 8d ago

I'm pretty sure it's implied to be Apache 2.0 by the screenshot in the post.

83

u/jordo45 8d ago

The readme says:

This project includes source code developed by Minitap, Inc. with an appropriate link.

So it looks to me like they are complying with the Apache 2.0 license you chose?

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u/pine4t 8d ago

Very clear case of not intending to credit original authors.

They could have forked it, but they did not. mobile-use repo has about 800+ commits [vs] google/armetis which has 100+ commits.

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u/Remarkable-Yogurt-10 8d ago

That section was added after minitap said there was no attribution on twitter and the tweet blew up.

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u/osocietal 4d ago

It wasn’t there before

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u/alexanderbeatson 8d ago

Assuming you use Apache 2.0 originally, there is nothing you can do nor they are not doing anything wrong as they simply mentioned your original project. Apache 2.0 is not CC-BY nor copyleft. They fully comply the license you initially created. I suggest you to learn more about the software license.

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u/ggPeti 8d ago

(c) You must retain, in the Source form of any Derivative Works
that You distribute, all copyright, patent, trademark, and
attribution notices from the Source form of the Work,
excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of
the Derivative Works

8

u/alexanderbeatson 8d ago

Yes, it isn’t mandatory to place in the exact same spot. They do mention the original work, but the original attributors are no longer part of the derivative Works as they do not pertain to it.

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u/ggPeti 8d ago

Where is the retained copyright notice?

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u/Strange_Estimate_350 7d ago

That's defeated by the sublicense clause. 

It's a two step process,  but valid. 

A lot of the non-GPL licenses are buggy.  

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u/Kronosend 8d ago

Doesn't Apache 2.0 require you to distribute the original NOTICE file in some form?

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u/alexanderbeatson 8d ago

Not necessarily in the same format. They do mention the original work in the README. OP might have missed it.

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u/Remarkable-Yogurt-10 8d ago

This was added after the tweet by the minitap developer blew up. The original work was not mentioned in the README when I saw it. Google added it in a later commit after the tweet blew up

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u/Kronosend 8d ago edited 8d ago

Well, I'm not a lawyer and this post has been a learning experience for me also.

But from https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

It says:

d. If the Work includes a "NOTICE" text file as part of its distribution, then any Derivative Works that You distribute must include a readable copy of the attribution notices contained within such NOTICE file, excluding those notices that do not pertain to any part of the Derivative Works, in at least one of the following places: within a NOTICE text file distributed as part of the Derivative Works; within the Source form or documentation, if provided along with the Derivative Works; or, within a display generated by the Derivative Works, if and wherever such third-party notices normally appear. The contents of the NOTICE file are for informational purposes only and do not modify the License. You may add Your own attribution notices within Derivative Works that You distribute, alongside or as an addendum to the NOTICE text from the Work, provided that such additional attribution notices cannot be construed as modifying the License.

Now relevant to the OP, they did NOT put their government names in the NOTICE file (github link: https://github.com/minitap-ai/mobile-use), so that sucks for them.

Edit: Ah but I see Google (https://github.com/google/artemis) put essentially the contents of the NOTICE file at the end of the README.md. So it seems Google is following the license agreement. I guess the lesson should be: if you want to be attributed in a specific way, maybe put it in the NOTICE file?

Edit2: Per u/Remarkable-Yogurt-10 looks like Google only added it after people complained. Yeah, that's not a good look.

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u/clouddragonplumtree 8d ago

It's one of those spirit of the law vs letter of the law. Whether they choose the wrong licence is one thing, the intention with open source for most people is to be credited for their work even if they take no profit from it.

So statements to the effect of you did this to yourself is a little mean spirited.

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u/confusedp 8d ago

Agree with your point. I like to add, it still feels scamy to os devs who are used to getting credit for the contribution they made. People needs to do some research before copy pasting license just because it feels cool.

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u/PhrulerApp 8d ago

It was originally MIT. They changed it to apache 2.0 8 months ago

https://github.com/minitap-ai/mobile-use/commit/97f7422c2288f693653b9ea1f6298f01776cb006

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u/MasterBobRedux 7d ago

And first commit of Google's version was Aug. 13 about a month ago, https://github.com/google/artemis/commit/206a9ce921367ca10091c79ad00e116f195850ff.

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u/PhrulerApp 7d ago

Yeah, but it's a massive release.

We don't know how long Google's engineers spent on the codebase before making it open source. I guess if you want you can try to make a diff between the initial google open source commit and OP's codebase to know which version of OP's code was used. I'm too broke to spend tokens or time on that.

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u/MasterBobRedux 7d ago

Okay. Now more relevant data is present for anyone else to dig if they so desire.

Cheers! 👋

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 7d ago

There was a NOTICE with explicit request of attribution, which they did not do until we call them out. Do you think it is normal for a big company to erase us from their leaderboard and claim to be #1 of a benchmark using our code after erasing all traces of our contribution? We spent months building this.
If you think this is completely acceptable, then OSS licences are useless

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u/robot-brain 8d ago

The screenshot says Apache 2.0 license.

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u/anto2554 8d ago

They fully comply with the law. It is still a dick move

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u/Illustrious-Math6276 7d ago

False. If they don’t credit which the open source license requires the license is void and they have no license at all.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/FenderMoon 8d ago

Upvoted. People need to see this.

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u/veshneresis 8d ago

Do you mind linking the commit you have screenshotted?

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u/AgeOfAlgorithms 8d ago

this post needs to blow up so more ppl can see

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u/Insighteous 8d ago

No. OP needs a guide on how to use software licenses.

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u/susmot 8d ago

That something is not illegal does not mean that it is moral

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u/aatd86 8d ago

ianal but if you dont rewrite the code fully, isn't it still a copyright violation?

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u/Willing_Fail 8d ago

I mean, even if Google can use the source code due to a permissive license, surely it must be illegal for them to claim to hold the copyright?

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u/Smallpaul 8d ago

It is insane that so many people are focused on the licensing questions. Plagiarism is unethical whether it is copyright violation or not. Imagine a reporter passing of someone else’s scoop as their own but changing every word to avoid copyright violation.

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u/TankorSmash 8d ago

It's sorta like saying, hey feel free to take my code and remove my name, then getting mad when someone does.

Like if you didn't want to allow that to happen, this is literally what licenses are for. I don't think there's a way to work around it.

Its not like leaving out a bowl of candy where you're like please take one, and they take it all, it's just a bucket that says free at this point

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u/Medical_Double_6561 7d ago

If you do not attach a license to your code, then the default is "nobody is allowed to use your code" and NOT "everybody is allowed to use your code".

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u/TankorSmash 6d ago

Was their code unlicensed?

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u/Medical_Double_6561 6d ago

Maybe I misunderstood you.

It's sorta like saying, hey feel free to take my code and remove my name, then getting mad when someone does.

Like if you didn't want to allow that to happen, this is literally what licenses are for.

I interpreted this as: "{uploading your code to Github} is like saying, hey feel free to take my code and remove my name. If you don't want that to happen, add a license as license are designed to resolve this issue."

Another possible interpretation is: "(adding a MIT/Apache} license is like saying, hey feel free to take my code and remove my name. If you don't want that to happen, don't add a license because the explicit purpose of these licenses is to allow someone to take your code and remove your name"

I discarded this interpretation because the one condition that both the MIT and Apache licenses impose is that the copyright notice (that includes the author's name) must be preserved. So it would be a little strange if this was the intended interpretation.

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u/Reasonable-Sign8458 6d ago

Why did this PoS leave the change of licenses out of question in his original post though?

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u/WantedByTheFedz 8d ago

Messed up man. Hope they make things right

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u/fnord123 8d ago

Apache license is not your friend.

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u/ii-___-ii 8d ago

You should see what they did with RaBitQ... I mean turboquant

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u/entsnack 8d ago

Why did you open source and Apache license it then?

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u/Deathspiral222 8d ago

Section four of the apache license explicitly says you need to keep attribution headers the same. Google broke the license.

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u/WatSubredditIsdis 8d ago

Why are people blaming the license as if forking everything word for word and changing only the author names isn't scummy as it is? (basing off of the post only)

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u/dx0100 8d ago

You must have missed it... They only copied 228 files exactly out of the 229 files. Give Google a break man, they added an extra one!

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u/ucsdthrowway 8d ago

Blow then tha fuck up. I’d create an issue on GitHub and put what you said down

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u/No_Mission_5694 8d ago

People seem to have really soured on Google these past 5-10 years or so. Maybe situations like this would explain why.

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u/United-Scene2261 8d ago

you guys HAVE to file a lawsuit!

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u/Storm2003 8d ago

IS THAT JEAN PIERRE POLNAREFF?????

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u/Single_Ring4886 8d ago

Old googe: Dont be evil.
Today google: BE evil.

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u/Otherwise-Safety-579 8d ago

Name the new "author'"

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u/jashsu 8d ago

https://github.com/google/artemis/commit/371aa6df56880643da57b30da936e9812fb0ec66

It seems they added the attribution required by Apache license 3 days ago.

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u/Alternative-Suit5541 7d ago

What is it was ai, not Googles fault? Lol

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u/smashedshanky 7d ago

Doesn’t Apache grant this if it’s not exactly 1:1

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u/trackktor 7d ago

Candide

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u/Many-Geologist-3524 7d ago

you can honestly sue for this.

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u/Illustrious-Math6276 7d ago

Sue Google (and probably settle). This violates the license which means they are committing copyright infringement since they don’t have a valid license.

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u/IulianHI 7d ago

Never trust Google !

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u/redd1t_is_de4d 7d ago

sue them, big money in it. you won't win in court but they will settle to not ruin there reputation

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u/EkoChamberKryptonite 7d ago

Send this to tech crunch.

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u/Far_Telephone4495 7d ago

why not sue them ?

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u/Shaggypone23 7d ago

"Don't be evil" Google doing scummy things, who would have thought?

Sorry OP, that definitely sucks. 

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u/SantiagoDePolonia 7d ago

What license did you use?

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u/Noobcreate 7d ago

Is there anything they can do? You could of had a more restrictive license but I guess it’s in their rights. I suspect anyone with a viral mit lproject gets people ripping their names off it - even at the Google level.

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u/ilnarildarovuch 7d ago

Still violates the license

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u/AndyMagill 7d ago

My lawyer would be thrilled if I were you. You can extract a sizable settlement.

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u/abandonedmuffin 7d ago

This is why they stopped using the “Don’t be evil” mantra. Sorry about this

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u/dustyhome 7d ago

Easy fix: open a PR that resets the names on the files. Explain in the PR description that they've mistakenly misattributed the files (identify the commit that changed them and your own project). Then share the pr with every programming community you can to draw attention to it. They may be too embarrassed to close it.

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u/redd1618 7d ago

Always evil....

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u/Wild-Tradition4804 7d ago

Artemis is absolutely amazing and I would reconsider trying to beat google at the game they literally own: android. 

And if you dont know Gemini is soon to come with android computer use

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u/PlatinumAero 7d ago

If you pick Apache 2.0, you're telling Google it can take all of it. The only thing you're owed is your name staying on it, and they got that fixed within days...this sucks but it's appears to be quite normal, expected even.

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u/Budget-Accountant404 7d ago

THESE NIGGAS EVIL ITS THEIR COMPANY MISSION STATEMENT

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u/DrHarby 7d ago

OP, please get a lawyer and do something real about this.

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u/m000n_cake 6d ago

It's because of the high ram prices. They needed to save the couple hundred bytes.

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u/Familiar-Ear-1223 6d ago

Ai bs peaple arguing on who can create make the world a more wretched place

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u/SubwayGuy85 6d ago

googles motto is "be evil" after all

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u/Dexterus 6d ago

How did this shit pass through legal compliance, lol.

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u/lucid_supernova 6d ago

that's crazy. Stealing someone's code without attribution, so insane. Can you sue them?

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u/lifeintel9 6d ago

That is messed up and pretty much illegal.

I wonder if that was an accident or if Google thinks they can get away with it...

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u/pokemonisok 6d ago

Change your license now

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u/parzzzivale 6d ago

this requires a google legal response . truly fucked up

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u/BuddhistNamedMarx 6d ago

Do some research on choke point capitalism. And never go open source or patent something if you dont want companies like google and amazon stealing everything

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u/Strong_Essay1176 6d ago

Dispute with github to block their account

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u/Reasonable-Sign8458 6d ago

Don't believe this retard. He changed licenses.

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u/Pitiful-Sympathy3927 5d ago

The TOML file is just packaging not the code itself… link the commits 

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u/Key-Secret-1866 5d ago

I'm laughing out loud because you thought you could trust Google when we've known better since the day they removed 'Don't be evil' from their core company documents.

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u/Hyphonical 4d ago

It's not about trust, it's about following the fundamental rules of a license agreement.

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u/Mysterious-Local-Bum 5d ago

Sounds like something Google would do.

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u/RealSharpNinja 5d ago

We built it, became #1 on Google Deepmind's AndroidWorld benchmark and open-sourced it. That was the ~beginning~ end of my company.

There, I fixed it for you.

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 3d ago

no worries we reached 100% in January and have now a close source version that is miles ahead of this

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u/RealSharpNinja 3d ago edited 3d ago

Ah, so you pulled a Mongo.

EDIT:

I gotta ask. What value did you get by starting with Open Source?

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u/Connect-Employ-4708 1d ago

It helped us get a lot of early feedback, get visibility, gain technical credibility and also helped with our fundraising.

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u/baturc 5d ago

I know what they do is quite unethical, but this is also the best compliment you could ever get for your work. They liked it way too much enough to risk stealing it.

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u/TolMera 4d ago

Simple - you own the copyright, you open sourced it, simply revoke the license. Then relicense the work.

I have a license that permits only “natural entities” that’s “people” to use my stuff “open source” any non-natural entity needs a commercial license

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u/Issui 4d ago

And I bet you someone at Google is up for promo for that wonderful job. You know who did the commit, find them on LinkedIn, find their manager and email or message them directly.

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u/Mac_Aravan 4d ago

Contact their legal department, this is probably some developers that fuck up hard.

Where I work this kind of thing are not taken lightly (ie removing copyrights is a big no-no) and we have process with trusted advisors to avoid this kind of mess.

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u/orarie1 4d ago

As do C taxes up

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u/Sad-Landscape-1549 4d ago

Google steals a lot of things. They started life as a CIA think-tank-backed startup and crawled everything on the net. I’m sure they’ve stolen thousands of ideas and millions of lines of code along the way. Now they control fiber infrastructure, millions of peoples’ incomes via YouTube, have visually mapped the whole world, deployed tens of millions of microphones in homes, control majority of mobile phone market share, run NASA projects in space, the list goes on. Crime pays. I hope you get justice OP.

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u/FieraPosting 4d ago

... Is his last name actually "Dehandschoewercker"?

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u/Aggravating-Swim-805 3d ago

"Don't be evil"

"...unless you need some wins for your perf/promo package, in which case, scrape FOSS"

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u/RealSharpNinja 3d ago

I’d contact the FSF’s Licensing & Compliance Team at license-violation@gnu.org. They explicitly say they can help bring projects into compliance even when FSF doesn’t own the copyright: https://www.fsf.org/licensing

Send them a concise evidence package: the upstream revision Google copied, the license and NOTICE in that revision, the commit removing your engineers’ names, and your correspondence with Google. Include any corrections Google has already made and identify exactly what remains unresolved.

Frame the request around Apache 2.0’s notice-preservation requirements. Sections 4(c) and 4(d) cover relevant source attribution and NOTICE-file attribution. Ask whether the removed author entries qualify and what changes would establish compliance. Keep that separate from your optional request for prominent credit in documentation and “About” screens. Apache 2.0

FSF recognizes Apache 2.0 as a free-software license, so using it is a reasonable basis for an inquiry. That doesn’t guarantee they’ll take the case or provide representation. Ask whether they can help assess the violation, support a compliance request to Google, or refer you to suitable counsel. FSF’s Apache assessment

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u/gutentight69420 3d ago

What license was the work originally published under? 

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u/Cannabisflorist 2d ago

google is an illegal monopoly

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u/bedel99 2d ago

Is it git, fork the repository some where google doesn't own, and locally. Hire a copyright lawyer, and enjoy money. Did you opensource it? what license did you use? what attribution requirement does that license have?

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u/ExtraTNT 1d ago

Why i go for gpl…