How to Deal With Stolen Code?

greenrom writes "I work for a small company as a software developer. While investigating a bug in one of our products, I found source code on a website that was nearly identical to code used in our product. Even the comments were the same. It's obvious that a developer at our company found some useful code on the web and copied it. The original author didn't attach any particular license to the code. It's just 200 lines of code the author posted in a forum. Is it legitimate to use source code that's publicly available but doesn't fall under any particular license? If not, what's the best way to deal with this kind of situation? Since I'm now the only person working on this code, there's no practical way to report the situation confidentially. I'm new to the company, and the developer who copied the code is the project lead. Reporting him to management doesn't seem like a good career move. I could rewrite the copied code without reporting him, but since the product is very close to release it would be difficult to make a significant change without providing some justification."

Comments

I can help

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a lawyer. Please contact me about suing some people for lots of money.

Re:Uhhhhh

[Selfbain]

Is your hairstyle distinctively pointy by any chance?

Appropriate Quote

[Rob Riggs]

This just popped up at the bottom of this article's page:

Immature artists imitate, mature artists steal. -- Lionel Trilling

I wonder...

[sunaj]

I wonder if your project lead reads /. ?

IANAL

[Greyfox]

But I bet your company has one. Wait, I'm getting an idea... yes... yes... no, lost it. I'm sure it would have been the best legal advice ever posted on Slashdot, though...

I shall copyright...

[Zukix]

int i = 0;

hah you will all be theives from just reading this post!

Or maybe there is something more to a copyright issue than just any code snippet.

Hmm.

Re:Uhhhhh

[iamacat]

Thanks, I always did want to make a buck from Cmdr Taco. The following code is implicitly copyrighted by me and I am not giving slashdot any permission to reproduce it:

(BOOL)loginWithUsername: userName password: passwd {
    struct pam_conv pam_conv;
    pam_handle_t *pamh;
 
    pam_conv.conv = null_conv;
    pam_conv.appdata_ptr = (void *)[passwd UTF8String];
 
    int r = pam_start("sshd", [userName UTF8String], &pam_conv, &pamh);
    if (r != PAM_SUCCESS) {
        fputs("Unable to initialize PAM\n", stderr);
        return 1;
    }
    r = pam_authenticate(pamh, PAM_SILENT);
    pam_end(pamh, 0);
    return r == PAM_SUCCESS;
}

Good to hear

[edwardpickman]

So Vista Service Pack 1 is about ready for release?

Re:Uhhhhh

[andphi]

If first dying and then waiting 70 years won't do it, will silver stakes or holy water?

Or should we just start making Xerox copies of the zombie survival guide?

Re:Uhhhhh

[Anti_Climax]

As a service to those of us that are less technically inclined, can you give me an idea of the conversion factor between LOC (lines of code) and LoC (Libraries of Congress)

Re:Uhhhhh

[Alzheimers]

Or should we just start making Xerox copies of the zombie survival guide?

They're called photocopies, you trademark infringer!

Re:Uhhhhh

[andphi]

Actually, they did have zombie lawyers. The Beast killed everyone at Wolfram & Hart and they all came back as zombies.

Re:Uhhhhh

[andphi]

Step One: Get in Taxi
Step Two: Do not bite driver
Step Three: Tell Final Destination to Driver
Step Four: Do not nibble on driver
Step Four 1/2: Go to Bookstore
Step Five: Exit Vehicle after biting driver (Zombies don't pay)
Step Six: Find book in bookstore
Step Six 4/5: Take book without paying. See Step Five.
Step Seven: Bite other patrons as desired, being careful to avoid anyone with a knife or anyone standing in the Military History section. Such patrons may already know how to kill Zombies and should be avoided.
Step Eight: Shamble home, avoiding law enforcement officers and other armed humans.

Re:Uhhhhh

[turbidostato]

"Therefore I conclude the units LoC and KLOC are the same."

Unless, of course, one KLOC means 1024 LOC.

Reverse it.. act niave... and inform management...

[tempest69]

Explain that somehow the source code got onto the internet from your company.. Then let a higher up know, the some of their code got leaked.

Then let them figure out the truth, and get indignant with your boss.

A sleazy thing to do to a sleazy guy

Storm

p.s. The correct answer is to get your boss and his in a room, and explain the situation. And more than likely you'll be stuck re-coding it. And your boss will hate your guts, his boss will be cranky with both of you. But it would be the right way to handle the situation.

On Discworld at least

[jhantin]

In the city of Ankh-Morpork the head of the Guild of Lawyers is in fact a zombie; he was executed but simply refuses to die until his firm's invoices for his defense at trial are paid by his descendants. His partners are vampires. Makes one wonder...

Re:Uhhhhh

[fatwilbur]

An informal approach drawing it to management's attention is probably a reasonable first action to try and restore compliance. Holy hell, someone finds some useful code posted on a forum, uses it, and you report them to management?? And you call this professional behavior? Please everyone out there writing code on a project - do not listen to this guy.

Re:OT: Burning money

[ozmanjusri]

I'd rather have US goods competitively priced in the global market.

Me too.

I'm always happy to buy cheap gear built by underpaid Americans in sweatshops.

Re:Uhhhhh

[montyzooooma]

I thought it was supposed to be how many can dance on the head of a pin?

The HR dept told them to stop for H&S reasons.

Difference in Mindset

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's a difference in mindset. Many of us think of knowledge as belonging to society. We think of knowledge as a kind of library. We checkout some ideas and we publish some ideas. We realize that all of us can profit by sharing. Imagine if every scientific idea was copyrighted so if you wanted to do anything you had to either pay a license fee to every person that thought of some part of your invention.

For instance if you wanted to build an airplane you would first have to pay an idea license fee to: Leonardo da Vinci Idea Holdings, Galileo Gravity Institute, the Newton Center for Motion, the Entreprise de Rozier-d'Arlandes, Das Swedenborg Unternehmen, Cayley Corp, Penaud Inc, Wnk Works, the Royal Aeronautical Society, Otto Air, Percy's Planes, Chanute's Chutes, Mozhaysky's Motorplanes, Zeppelin Aeronautical, Langley Aircraft, Manly Motors, Wright Fliers, Curtis Aviation, Santos-Dumont Dirigibles, etc, etc, etc.

Unfortunately there are others that think ideas should be bought and sold like cattle. The cattle people have this bizarre idea that if you get a piece of paper that says you thought of something first, regardless of whether you did or not, you have some kind of exclusive right to that idea; no one is allowed to think the idea up after you.

That kind of thinking is evil.

Re:Uhhhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

You're going to get an honest answer about IP theft from the Linux trolls. Can I have some of what you are smoking?

Re:Uhhhhh

[Anonymous Coward]

>Do you have any link to support your claim?
>Most of TCP/IP stack both in Novell and MS Windows is from BSD code.

Do YOU have any link to support your claim?