SEL: Did Google Steal Orkut Code?

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June 30, 2004

Did Google Steal Orkut Code?

Wired News reports that Affinity Engines is suing Google, claiming that much of the source code behind Orkut.com, the search engine's popular social service, was stolen from them by Orkut Buyukkokten.

"In its initial investigation, AEI (Affinity Engines) uncovered a total of nine unique software bugs ... in AEI's inCircle product that were also present in Orkut.com," according to the lawsuit. "The presence of these bugs in both products is highly indicative of a common source code…. Orkut.com contains software and source code copied, developed or derived from AEI's inCircle software or source code."

Google fired back...

Affinity Engines has not provided any evidence to Google that their source code was used in the development of Orkut.com," wrote David Krane, the company's director of corporate communications, in a statement to Wired News. "We have repeatedly offered to allow a neutral expert to compare the codes in the two programs and evaluate Affinity's claims, but Affinity has rejected that offer. We have investigated the claims ... thoroughly and concluded that the allegations are without merit."

Affinity should have at least waited until Google actually made a profit with Orkut, as it stands now, Orkut is going nowhere.

Andy Beal | permalink | +marktd |

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