blog.s11n.net

Facebook code leaked… so what? (And here it is…)

A small amount of (amateurish) PHP code for the popular social website Facebook was leaked recently via a mistake made by Facebook on one of its web servers (not via malicious crackers). While i am not a Facebook user (never even been to the site) and have absolutely no interest in Facebook (and even less than none after seeing what type of code they work with), i am posting the leaked code here for a couple of reasons:

1) Facebook lawyers have been sending cease and desist letters to tons of sites for doing so, claiming that posting the code violates the DMCA. Google and Digg.com have a both complied to these demands, as have numerous bloggers.

2) The code was leaked by a mistake from Facebook, and not malicious people. This makes the DMCA argument moot. Copyright violation cannot be claimed when the copyright owner is the one who releases the content.

3) Moreover, the leaked code contains no authorship or copyright information, so it cannot be proven that in fact they own the copyright. Hell, if that was my code i certainly wouldn’t put my name on it, either.

4) i am morally and philosophically against the DMCA and the lawyers related to it can TRY to sue me - the DMCA is an law of the United States and i don’t live in the U.S. :-P

The code in question, as if you really want to see it, is here.