This wasn't plagiarism. At no point did Martin attempt to pass this off as his own work. This was an homage, very much in the spirit of open source - the only problem was that the book is not open source.
In that detail, it may not be the classical form of plagiarism and just piracy. However, if we are sticklers for the point of attribution, we have to acknowledge that "homage" doesn't involve ignoring licenses or copy-and-pasting the original content, now don't we?
Yes, he committed copyright infringement - I'm not going to argue that. I'm talking about intent - did Martin have malicious intent? I don't think so. I don't think he ignored the license - I think he assumed it was under a permissive license - a silly mistake, but since the book is "free" it's not hard to see how someone could make that mistake.
Please understand: when you do something wrong, when you "ignore" or "assume" away that you're doing something wrong, when you react belligerently to the person telling you to stop doing that wrong thing, your original intent just isn't that important.
I'm sorry man but the person initially belligerent was Zed with his remarks about class and his hostile approach. Martin, complied with that Zed asked, and tried to explain his reason, his intent, and why he thought it was ok. Zed again responded in an antagonizing way. If Zed had done the things the 'classy' way, he would have either sent a Cease and Desist notice or sent a POLITE message to the person he's addressing.
And for the record, intent is the only thing that actually matters in this discussion, as the only real damage that has occurred is towards Martin's reputation, which more than likely was Zed's (specially knowing his belligerent tendencies) intent.
The person wrong was Edme. The person wronged was Shaw.
Absorb these facts.
The person who tried to tell the person he wronged that he hadn't actually done anything wrong was Edme. The person who twittered about the person he'd wronged being a douchebag was Edme. The person who continued and escalated the confrontation, instead of apologizing, taking his lumps, and STFUing, was Edme.
Absorb those facts.
This story does NOT start with Shaw's first message as some sort of aggression. It starts with Edme and it continues with Edme, no matter how you try to recast it.
Now, if Shaw's "tendencies" were leading him to try to ruin Edme's reputation, I think he could have accomplished that much easier by making a long blog post about how Edme is an asshole, instead of a blog post that tangentially mentioned that some unnamed people were trying to "port" his book, why that was a bad idea, and how to properly go about making a version of his book.
On the other hand, Edme tried to publicize the exchange. He posted it on HN to cold disinterest and a flag-killing. If anyone was trying to hurt anyone's else's reputation, I think it was Edme himself. That Edme's reputation will probably suffer more that Shaw's is just funny.
Absorb this fact - at no point have I suggested that martin was right. The ONLY thing I am trying to assert is that Martin copied the book out of ignorance not malice and that Zed could (and in my opinion should) have been more polite.
Martin's actions after Zed's response are inexcusable. But that doesn't mean Zed wasn't being rude.
I subscribe to the "Don't be a douchebag" philosophy, and I think both Martin and Zed were being douchebags. BUT Martin wasn't being a douchebag when he copied the book, he was just being ignorant (and breaking the law).
Thank you kind sir, I also agree that Martin was in the wrong, and that his actions after the fact where also douche like. All this could have been avoided if Zed had been classy enough to rise above his 'anger' and instead of being condescending and rude. Martin is at fault for making a stupid mistake anyone could have made and for being a jerk in his response, but the whole argument was started by Zed not being understanding and attacking a person who made no effort to wrong him and thought he was honoring Mr. Shaw's work.
If I made a mistake like this, I would gladly take down the work, issue a public apology, and submit salvageable content to the person doing the Ruby version of the book, but in no way am I going to be talked down because I wanted to do a good thing as if I was in the same league as a plagiarizer. It could have been a win/win situation for everyone.
