Code Copying Survey for Developers

Struan Robertson writes "With all the controversy surrounding SCO's allegations that its Unix code was copied into Linux, we're running a survey with ZD Net to gauge industry practice on code copying. Do you keep a code library? Do you take it from one employer to another? These are the questions we're asking. All answers will be anonymous. The results - with expert legal analysis - will be published free - we're not doing this to sell reports etc. If you're a developer and happy to help, see our questions on SurveyMonkey.com."

Comments

You’d be surprised how much of a career…

[Anonymous Coward]

...you can build on view source followed by a cut-and-paste. I beg, borrow, or steal from wherever I can and I expect you to do the same from me. I am open to learning new techniques, code structure, and excellent documentation from the code I read and steal. I have never taken a core money making idea and used it as the central core of my own money making idea, but everything else is fair game as far as I am concerned.

Code library.

[FictionPimp]

I maintain a code library. But its written very generic. I usually copy that code and use modify it to fit the project i'm working on. I dont see a problem with that because the code is technically different in each project and used in a different way. For example (this one is a little far fetched) Lets say I wrote a function to format a date. In 1 program I may use that function to only output as mm/dd/yyyy. In another program I may use that same function to only output mm/yy.

Its technically the same code, but I remove the the parts that are not used.

Besides, even if I didn't have the database. I will write a function to do something very close to the exact same way 90% of the time. Most of the developers I know have very reconizable styles. I can usually tell who on my team wrote what parts by the code alone.

Sorry for my spelling errors, I dont have time to spellcheck.

Code libraries aren't that helpful

[Future Man 3000]

For the most part, when you go into a new job you're maintaining or cleaning somebody else's work. A library of programming and style books is probably worth more than a code library.

Besides, the parts of a code library that are most likely to be reusable are also most likely to be publically known algorithms (B-Tree, MD5 hash, etc.) and therefore published in some form already. It's probably wrong to take something that you were specifically paid to produce for one company along with you to another, so don't do it.

Choice?

[sploxx]

Emmm. Just got this question in the survey:

6. Would you re-use blocks of code written elsewhere

a) ( ) Only if you were confident that nobody would find out

b) ( ) Whether it would be found out or not

Where is 'c) I won't'?

bad questions

[Sharth]

Alot of these questions are very badly written. First off, I'm wandering through it, and I'm wondering if this question is referring to code that I have written, or is it code that I've just found along the way. This "survey" really needed to be beta tested (even in an irc forum or something) before being posted to slashdot. Heck, the mods coulda helped out a little and looked at the survey first...

This is not a can of worms you want to open

[Featureless]

...unless you really know what you're in for, and are ready to talk about reforming our laws.

Our intellectual property laws, when interpreted strictly, are a bit of a farce. Especially when it comes to thinks like patents, work for hire, the nebulous concept of derived works, "clean rooms..." all the way down to the embattled idea of fair use, backups, lending versus copying, onerous and unenforcable NDAs and employment contracts, and the end fact that, as a society, we have never ever, even for a day, played by the basic copyright rules "100%."

Our whole industry functions by ignoring the rules most of the time. I have never worked anyplace where all the rules (licenses, for instance) were followed. I always follow them myself to the best of my abilities - but it's impossible. I've probably unintentionally violated a license by now, and I've almost certainly infringed thousands of patents. I have never brought code from one client to another without permission or license, not even once, not even when it would have saved untold time and money and was simply the most obvious, easy thing to do... but over the years I received quite a bit of pressure under various circumstances to do it, and I'm certain that quite a few other people do.

That said, because the SCO issue (or non-issue, to be frank) is raised, let me say that it's a different thought process when you're going between the commercial and the free software world - both because the pressures to cheat don't exist (or hardly to any similar extent) in OSS, and because it is almost certain in OSS you'll be caught out. It's like parking a stolen car on the street in front of your house.

But commercial project to commercial project, yes, I bet it happens quite often. And also from OSS to commercial - I would be shocked if there were many large commercial projects that don't have stolen OSS code in them...

Re:Sure, Why Not?

[mrtrumbe]

Because it's illegal?

Seriously, though, would you really trust a person who completely relied on copy/pasting legacy code into current projects? Do you know where that person got the code to begin with? Did he write it? Does he even understand the code?

While just about everyone I know keeps a personal code library containing *some* proprietary code, most don't actively use it. Those who are unscrupulous enough to copy/paste the code into current projects are not people you want around in the long term. I mean, did they even think about the best solution to the problem before doing that copy/paste?

Most people I know use their library as a reference for future development. This allows them to take the best features/ideas of their historical library and integrate those ideas in new and better ways into their current projects. And I don't see a problem with this behavior. Any person with a decent memory would remember their best ideas and features, anyway, so the illegality of this behavior is questionable.

Taft

I'd suggest no one take this survey.

[Queuetue]

It's written by someone who either doesn't understand the issues involved, or is interested in 'interesting news' not a legitimate survey.

Most questions don't take into account the varying ways that code gets licensed and work gets done. They assume you're either giving the code to your employer or stealing it, when there is a whole universe of licensing paths in between those two nodes.

Re:Kind of a stupid survey.

[eddy the lip]

I'm pretty sure that this is what you meant, but just to clarify (under US law at least - it's the same in Canada, but I couldn't find a reference quickly) - if you're an independent contractor, the copyright only belongs to the guy with the cash if it's explicitly stated in the contract that this is a work for hire.

Only certain kinds of work actually qualify as a "work for hire" under the copyright statute. For example, it is a common misconception that software qualifies as a work for hire. It is not, however, one of the enumerated categories of works that qualifies as a work for hire in the copyright statute.
Source

When freelancing, or representing my company, I never assign the copyright to the buyer, unless:

• they understand that all code used will be written from scratch,
• that this will dramatically increase the development time of the project
• that $x is the price if it's not a work for hire, and that $x + $bignum is the price if it is.

Part of what people get when they hire me or my company is a big-ass code library. It's impossible to be competitive these days without that. I'm not about to assign any part of that to someone else, and I'm not going to be giving them copyright on anything I might develop for them without appropriate compensation.

As for the survey, yeah, most of the questions were maddeningly vague. They didn't include most of the copyright situations I've been faced with, including the one where I had an employee contract stating that they could use anything I wrote for them as they saw fit, and so could I.