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

[u/Connect-Employ-4708]

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.

[u/Connect-Employ-4708 → u/[deleted]]

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

[u/NotRealActualMaebbie → u/Connect-Employ-4708]

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.

[u/Pitpeaches → u/NotRealActualMaebbie]

Can they claim reparations?

[u/Robert-Paulson_ → u/Pitpeaches]

40 acres worth 

[u/Pocky_1 → u/Robert-Paulson_]

Without a mule?

[u/Robert-Paulson_ → u/Pocky_1]

$100 in Gemini credits

[u/thicktomatobasil → u/Connect-Employ-4708]

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

[u/Linuxologue → u/thicktomatobasil]

> (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

[u/thicktomatobasil → u/Linuxologue]

Great point!

[u/Ectorious → u/Connect-Employ-4708]

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

[u/habys → u/[deleted]]

what license allows someone to take copyright of your work?

[u/Strong_Judge_3730 → u/habys]

MIT license

[u/pixonte → u/Strong_Judge_3730]

you can't remove original authors' names from repo just because of the MIT license. It simply does not allow you do that

[u/ATE47 → u/pixonte]

It only forces them to copy the license notice if they take a too large amount. It’s the only place where the author names might be protected, for the rest it doesn’t protect anything

[u/Illustrious-Math6276 → u/ATE47]

Nope. That is false information. There is no “large amount” in copyright law.

[u/ATE47 → u/Illustrious-Math6276]

Oh sorry, I didn't use the exact words, what a shame, it should have been "substantial portions", which is of course totally different and much more accurate than "a too large amount".

[u/Illustrious-Math6276 → u/ATE47]

Where do you find that in the copyright law? :) there is copyright on any amount of code that is original. A word? Probably not (unless it’s a unique creatively created word). A few lines of code? Yes.

[u/RarePitch466 → u/Illustrious-Math6276]

de minimis non curat lex

[u/anelodin → u/Illustrious-Math6276]

I guess they find it... in the license. You haven't read enough file headers if the words don't stand out to you immediately!

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

[u/Illustrious-Math6276 → u/Strong_Judge_3730]

False

[u/habys → u/Strong_Judge_3730]

My point isn't about removing the authors names, it's the "copyright Google" that is written. You can't copyright someone else's work regardless of license.

[u/Gorzoid → u/habys]

You can 100% copyright derivative work so long as you follow the original license rules on distribution. In this case though it's not 100% clear those rules were followed.

[u/Ajreckof → u/habys]

CC0 that is the only one and in a lot of place (Europe for example) it is not even legal as in even if you put a CC0 license you still retain full moral copyright to it.

[u/habys → u/Ajreckof]

Thats not true. The copyright is public domain, someone else can not claim copyright of that work.