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

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...

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

[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.

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...