I wouldn't recommend going toe to toe with a technology company when there is nothing worthwhile to gain (If there is something worthwhile, then see a lawyer). Morally I think the project should be able to stay up. However, I would avoid the legal system at all costs. The stress isn't worth it.
I don't know exactly why, but my guess is because it is an objectively small/unimportant news story that has been analyzed for multiple days, as you mention.
1. To me, abstractly, a software engineer is someone who can going into a new language/situation and the result would be the best possible outcome given the supplied circumstances.
2. I think it would be fair to call yourself a software engineer once you have verified your ability to master multiple languages, and finished multiple projects, as the concepts behind them are the same.
There is no rule that dictates when someone becomes a software engineer. It happens when you're confident enough that you know your stuff, which is subjective. To me, it's when you can learn any language/project, given a reasonable (subjective to other SEs) amount of time.
"Despite speculation on the Internet that Summly only licensed its summarizing technology from SRI International, an independent research institute, Mr. D’Aloisio said the technology was developed by Summly and that the company owned 100% of the intellectual property behind the service."
Summly's internal team partnered closely with SRI in building our app.
Innovations from SRI International have created new industries, billions of dollars of marketplace value, and lasting benefits to society—touching our lives every day. SRI, a nonprofit research and development institute based in Silicon Valley, brings its innovations to the marketplace through technology licensing, new products, and spin-off ventures. Government and business clients come to SRI for pioneering R&D and solutions in computing and communications, chemistry and materials, education, energy, health and pharmaceuticals, national defense, robotics, sensing, and more. Visit sri.com for more information.
"Summly came to SRI International with a core concept to solve the information overload problem, which is especially challenging for mobile devices because of their limited screen size," said David Israel, Ph.D., program director in the Artificial Intelligence Center at SRI International. "Building on SRI's expertise in machine learning and natural language processing, the Summly team is creating a new type of content, providing understandable and relevant summaries tailored for mobile devices."
To the author: Would you have not taken a buyout offer from Yahoo! if you were in this kids position? All HN discussions regarding this topic have just screamed jealousy/disdain. It is as if people come to HN to read an intelligent argument to argue for their immature feelings. Also, the most important premise in your argument, that their technology was licensed, is incorrect. Their natural language technology was 100% proprietary according to them, and not "licensed from SRI" [0].
To truely understand what's going on here you have to follow the money. All of the money.
This is not a simple story of a hard working smart kid winning the tech lottery with a hot app/technology going from rags to riches. This is an arranged marriage, a PR stunt and a good-ole-boy deal all rolled into one. It's a VC fuck-you to all people that truly have innovative ideas, viable businesses, and dedicated employees that are trying to get management to notice solutions instead of golfing with "consultants" or blowing big money on solutions that could be built in-house for 1% of the costs.
The kid was born on third base, got home on a wild pitch and some folks think he hit a home run.
I wonder if Yahoo has got the rights to make a movie about this fairy tale. That's about the only way I can think of for them to cash-in. But it seems more likely that they just got sucker-punched.
