How one programmer broke the internet by deleting a tiny piece of code

[steve2470]

http://qz.com/646467/how-one-programmer-broke-the-internet-by-deleting-a-tiny-piece-of-code/

One of the open-source JavaScript packages Koçulu had written was kik, which helped programmers set up templates for their projects. It wasn’t widely known, but it shared a name with Kik, the messaging app based in Ontario, Canada. On March 11, Koçulu received an email from Bob Stratton, a patent and trademark agent who does contract work for Kik.

Stratton said Kik was preparing to release its own package and asked Koçulu if he could rename his. “Can we get you to rename your kik package?” Stratton wrote.

“Sorry, I’m building an open source project with that name,” Koçulu wrote back.

The conversation quickly escalated, with Stratton threatening legal action: “We don’t mean to be a dick about it, but it’s a registered trademark in most countries around the world and if you actually release an open source project called kik, our trademark lawyers are going to be banging on your door and taking down your accounts and stuff like that — and we’d have no choice but to do all that because you have to enforce trademarks or you lose them.”

more at link

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. What I can't work out from the story was who used 'kik' as a name first, publicly

If 'Kik' has a trademark for it, you'd think it was them. But in that case, you'd think Koçulu would say "OK, it's just a name you picked first". But he acts like it's been his project for ages.

[bemildred]

2. Yep, and that is why most large commercial software can be hacked.

Nobody really knows what's in it, unless they are willing to get down and grovel in where the code goes to understand it. And people who are on the clock never have that kind of time. But hackers do.

Understanding how a couple million lines of code works is not something you do quickly.