If there are no consequences to wrongly prosecuting someone just to hassle them then wouldn't that encourage people like Goldman Sachs to use that tool to extract revenge on people?
Sergey did technically break the law (or so they reasonably thought) by taking company code with the intention of using it after he left the company.
I think the real issue is whether or not he was acting maliciously, what the damage to Goldman Sachs was (basically none), and whether or not the punishment fit the crime.
Maybe companies should be forced to have an exit interview for programmers with access to information the company deems sensitive and make sure the programmer knows that they are not allowed to take any code with them.
I don't think he broke the law in any meaningful way; he merely did things that powerful people could portray as such.
I seriously doubt Goldman Sachs had any problem with him using/participating in non-secret open source as long as it was part of his work for them. Claiming this was stealing is sophistry - sure, he doesn't sound like a very clever (in the sense of cover-your-ass) guy, but if he'd have been open about what he did, there's no doubt that if he indeed was in anyway important to the company they would have OK's considerably more leeway if it contributed to their bottom line.
As is, they're simply abusing the lack of legal canny of their victim here. Which just goes to show - don't work for Goldman Sachs if you're smart - why take this kind of risk if you can get lots of other opportunities...
It seems GS replaced license headers from files with their own license. Painting with broad brush strokes here, is stealing from a thief still stealing?
After considering that some more, it seems like the court could (and maybe should) have ruled that it was simply a misunderstanding of the open-source code's license.
It seems like a waste of everyone's time to even pursue a case such as this after it's determined that the person didn't have malicious intentions.
Could the owner of the modified code successfully sue Goldman Sachs?
