Slashdot Mirror
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."
I think the first person to write a loop should complain a lot!
...right here. And here, too.
And lots of other folks contribute too. Good times!
The Army reading list
Hell no, I like rewriting conversion and formatting routines. That's like a paid vacation!
This is one reason that software patents are just silly. At some point, virtually every technique will have been written, then software companies will indeed all become like SCO: A few developers and a fucking platoon of IP lawyers.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
...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.
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.
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.
I never vote for anyone. I always vote against.
-- W.C. Fields
Is unreasonable. You are assuming I would reuse code but not saying if its in house or between companies. In my stats class this question would be deemed unethical and slanted. Thus, the results of the survey would be thrown out.
It asks
3. By law, who do you think owns the rights in a piece of software that you develop or in code that you write?
Me
My employer
The client who commissioned and is paying for the development
But never asks where I developed it, nor what legal documents exist to protect various parties.
Obviously, if I'm working on code under a work for hire agreement, it belongs to the guy with the cash. If not, It's copyright me. If it's OSS code that I need to improve for a client's benefit, of course it doesn't belong to either of us - it belongs to the original author.
Did I do it at home? Did I start it before or after getting involved with the company or client? Does the client mind freeing the source? Does it contain proprietary information?
This survey is worthless so far, except to publish articles.
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'?
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...
Why would I keep a library of code to help me get the job done faster and for less money?
If I write a program that performs a particular function, and then later want to write a program to do the same thing, I end up producing an almost exact replica of what I coded previously. Maybe it's just me, but my coding style is basically set in stone.
So, in that key, I'm not physically keeping a code library, but I am reproducing code that may have become the property of another party.
...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...
Want to Know How to Cheat the GPL? Read On!
...not to document your own code?
Sorry, but a hack != programmer. You can toss together a bunch of stuff other people have written, but when it breaks you'll need to be able to fix it. If you never learn how to do that, you'll never be more than a cut-and-paste drone.
It's great to be able to use resources like View Source to learn new stuff, see new techniques, even find quick examples of how something's done. But if you can't understand how to do it on your own (which may take much longer, granted) then you're not going to last.
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.
It does. Stupid questions of the type "have you stopped drinking whiskey in the morning?". I got really aggravated after answering 5 questions.
I have a "code library" (whatever they mean by that) which I wrote in my spare time. It is released under GPL. I'm the copyright holder. I can assign any other license to that code. Therefore I can embed parts of this library in any proprietary code I write for my employer.
I also reuse other people's code released under BSD, MPL etc. This is all legal, but the survey doesn't know about this stuff.
I passed the Turing test.
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Create a WAP server
I'd think pretty long and hard before answering these questions. This group appears to be a MS astroturf (false grassroots) organization, going as far as quoting that shill Didio from the Yankee Group.
The survey is full of misleading questions and will *force* you to admit you steal. Watch out.
I really want to haul the same old bloated and broken code that I wrote 5 years ago from job to job, like an albatross around my neck. That would really make me happy.
The biggest tempatation in looking for new jobs is being able to forget the current code base forever, and never have to add YET ANOTHER feature onto already-baroque code that nobody wants to take the time to rewrite.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.