[OTR-dev] mpOTR redux - now in git

[Jacob Appelbaum]

Meredith L. Patterson:
> I don't mean to speak for Nadim here, but I suspect at least some of
> his concern stems from the redaction of the endnotes in section 10 of
> the document on the Cryptocat wiki[1], which read "Special thanks to
> Jacob Appelbaum, Joseph Bonneau, [&c]", to your version[2], which
> reads "This document was authored by a number of anonymous
> contributors". You were credited, Jake, and it is disingenous and
> derailing of you to attempt to claim that Nadim did not credit you or
> "think[s] that you own [your] work product."
> 
> As the academics among us on this list are well aware, plagiarism is a
> serious concern. I personally have seen far too many instances of
> plagiarism or likely plagiarism swept under the rug -- including the
> one that led me to quit my PhD -- to be comfortable with seeing this
> matter "resolved" behind closed doors; I would prefer to see it dealt
> with right here where you brought it up by failing to properly credit
> Nadim's work.
> 

Hi Meredith,

I believe you are mistaken and looking at the CrytoCat specification
located here:


https://github.com/cryptocat/cryptocat/wiki/Multiparty-Protocol-Specification

The mpOTR specification that I co-authored is a totally different
document and has no attributions whatsoever in the wiki history or in
the wiki page itself:

 https://github.com/cryptocat/cryptocat/wiki/mpOTR-Specification

Comparing the first two documents and the mpOTR spec in git should
clearly indicate that they are different documents. In fact, the current
git repo that I am managing actually properly credits everyone that I
remember as even having discussed the topic, including Nadim!

Once, we did have some attribution in git history (commits, etc) but it
was lost when Nadim moved it to the wiki. Ironically, no one was
credited in the CryptoCat document except for Nadim.

As I have said previously, I am a co-author of that document and I have
never signed a copyright assignment to the CryptoCat project. So, if
someone is going to claim plagiarism, claiming to own the document
wholesale is pretty unreasonable. In any case, Nadim has just declared
his contributions under the AGPL:
https://github.com/ioerror/mpOTR/issues/2#issuecomment-13589031 I have
thus documented it in the git repository.

Again, if something is missing, I'm happy to add it. I do believe that I
have added everyone that has made contributions and who was comfortable
being credited in public on such a document.

And again, lets please take this off of the OTR-dev list - it is sure to
be annoying to everyone!

All the best,
Jake