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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."
I'm a lawyer. Please contact me about suing some people for lots of money.
No license == normal copyright rules apply. You can't do anything with it unless the author gives you permission (licenses do this). What you need to do is either 1) Replace the offending code or 2) Contact the author and find out what the terms on the code are / negotiate a deal.
When I was in grad school for programming my instructor taught us how to search for the code we needed on the web.
Moreover in my professional career as a programmer I ran into several stumbling blocks where I couldn't figure something out. I'd google for code, or use helper sites like Tek-Tips where people could either correct my code or provide me new code.
I'm paid for results, not for originality. If people provide code on the web as tutorial purposes or just as a friendly piece of help then I would be going against my job to not use it.
Moreover, I ask: If you bought a book on, say, ASP and it had sample code that did exactly what you wanted, would you then rewrite that code so it was not what was in the book? Of course you wouldn't!
If the author doesn't attach any license and it's "just" some code from a forum posting I don't see a problem with it. I have several times posted code samples in forums to help people, I would not mind that they where used in someones commercial program, if I minded I would have attached some for of license. If its posted on a forum to help somebody, the poster must know that it will be used.
Visit http://www.crunzh.com/ for free software. Mac/Lin/Win
Generally whenever I post code on an open forum in response to an answer, I assume the code will be used by other people and so I generally treat my own code as if I just put it into the public domain unless I've explicitly said otherwise.
However, that's not the law. I believe that the code an author publishes on an open forum is copyrighted by the author by default.
Me; I'd probably drop the guy a brief informal note asking permission to reuse the code and see what he does. More often than not if he's like me he'll probably say "sure, I don't mind."
How do you actually know that this happened? From what you posted it seems just as likely that the author of the code worked for your company and saw some question in a web forum, took some code that was the companies' property (developed on their time and their equipment) and posted it to the web forum to answer someone's question. Do you have any way to be sure that that isn't your own companies' code out there?
If the author of the code posted it in a forum, I would personally call that implicit permission to use the code. Otherwise, why even post it? To show off his great coding ability? Every programmer (myself included) does this all the time and I have never heard of "Forum police" going after them. As to the legality of downloading it, if it is showing in your browser window, you have already downloaded it.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
If you really want to spill the beans on this guy and get people to notice that he "stole" the code, then play stupid and show the forum to your boss and say "Look this guy took our code and posted it on this website" They will put one and one together and see that it was your office that actually copied it. Then it's in their hands and you we attempting to protect the company.
Don't worry about the fact that the forum post was 4 months before you guys even started work on your project. In your haste to protect your companies IP you didn't realize you were the ones doing the copying.
You'd be wrong. (At least in the United States you would.)
From http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html: "Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work" and "The use of a copyright notice is no longer required under U.S. law...."
Don't sweat it. When I post code in a forum, I generally do so with the hope that other folks will find it useful, and the expectation that, if they do find it useful, they'll go ahead and copy it. If I want to make something available with a license and everything, I'll either put it on Sourceforge, or post a license in the comments. It's a safe bet the original author feels the same way.
Legally, it's not necessarily safe to copy long snippets from forums, but from practical and social points of view, I think this is much ado about nothing.
If there is no copyright claim by the original author then I don't see what the problem is. AFAIK that means it's in the public domain (I'd check the website's disclaimer or terms of use though)
You'd better take a refresher course in copyright law. The lack of a copyright notice means little; your creations are implicitly copyrighted.
I may agree with you elsewhere, but you are flat out wrong on that point.
Ahh... technically speaking, this could be very bad advice in the business arena. While I'm not a lawyer, AFAIK code is copyrighted at the act of creation, and simply by making it available for viewing the author is not automatically giving up those rights. While it is highly unlikely that such a code snippet would cause problems down the road, it is not impossible that it could.
Rewriting simply because it was written external to the company isn't a good thing. Rewriting because it was written external to the company and you're not certain of your company's license to legally make use of the code is an *entirely* different thing.
The author not attaching a particular license to the code is not a blanket license to do with as you will. The author may have intended that, but I don't believe it's true in the legal sense.
It might make more sense to go as you're suggesting, but given the mess that is current copyright law, a business ought to tread more carefully.
The ringing of the division bell has begun... -PF
Um, no. If you want to be technical, if there's no license attached to the code, then you can't use it. Copyright happens on an original work from the time it's published. There are no notice requirements. Without a license, you don't have permission to use the work.
Now, in reality, the author posted it to a forum, probably with the intention of giving away the code. It would be entirely up to the author to sue and whether the author would sue or not -- well, I kinda doubt it.
But, if I were you, OP, I'd check with your company's legal department and/or an attorney. Asking questions like this on Slashdot is likely to result in you getting a lot of misinformation.
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If there's a question on the license, then I think it's totally reasonable for ScuttleMonkey to go to his project lead and say "I'm uncomfortable that we don't have an explicit license for this code, we need to contact the original author and obtain a license or an acknowledgement of a release to the public domain".
I don't attach a license or explicit release to every piece of code I've posted to forums or newsgroups or what-have-you over the years, and I have had every expectation that many of those would get copied and pasted into applications without attribution. I'd prefer it if, when that stuff ended up inside an app, there were a note saying "here's the original source" because when I've stumbled across such code it's sometimes made it easier to figure out what it's supposed to be doing, but I don't expect it.
If ScuttleMonkey has an indication that the original license is not something that allows incorporation into the code, then it's totally reasonable to escalate this one over the lead's head early on, but it sounds like this was something picked up off a site like CodeProject.com, where it's completely reasonable to assume that the intent of the poster was that this code be incorporated and adapted without further license terms.
I do this all the time. My feeling is that code snippets posted in a public forum are meant to be be used by others unless it says not to. Yes, I recognize that this is at least theoretically contrary to US copyright laws. But if you don't want someone to use it, why post it? To show your brilliant code?
Since this specific case apparently bothers you, I think you should try to contact the author through some back-channel and get an explicit okay to use it. But I bet more than likely your request will be ignored or you'll get a "why the fsck are you asking such a dumb thing?" That's generally how I reply when someone asks me about code I've posted.
Usually if it's a complicated section of code I'll include the URL in a comment above. If it's just a line or two I won't. Often times if it's from a forum I stay with that forum for a few weeks and try to contribute back in some way.
If the code explicitly has a license attached to it I follow that of course. But I've not had to do that yet. I don't pull code from other project bases unless it's a library or such (in which case I follow the license). Only code that is meant to be viewed and used (such as forums/tutorials).
The guy is asking a question because he's apparently new to the business and wants some sage advice from people like you who know what they're doing. People aren't born with this information, the only way to get it is either to screw up or ask somebody, and he decided that it was a good idea to ask first. Frankly (if that is your real name), however, I wouldn't put much weight into your vague response even if it wasn't condescending and derisive.
Is your hairstyle distinctively pointy by any chance?
Well, it has never been successfully tested.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I like the idea of commenting the code and moving on.
Note, though, that posting code on a forum with no copyright notice does not put it in the public domain. IIRC, the lack of copyright notice means that the first move of the copyright owner can not be to sue you, they must first notify you of the violation and give you a chance to fix it. In other words, the law takes into consideration that without a copyright notice you might accidentally copy something you shouldn't and allows for the violator to fix the problem once notified.
So the worst case is that the copyright owner makes your company change the code at some point in the future. If you put the recommended comment in, your company will know (i) its not your fault and (ii) you were heads-up enough to look into the issue a little further when you noticed it.
Yes, it's terrible to think that someone may consider ethical problems in a business situation. That perhaps he wants to do the right thing, needs some clarification, and doesn't want to get the company or himself in trouble.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Technically it is a copywrite violation but so is most anything now adays.
If the person posted code on a forum then normally they do so expecting people to use it. Hense Posting it on a forum. Most forums go like this.
First Post
How do I do this?
There is a reply
Try this code.
They usually replay with two options
Sorry it didn't work or It worked thanks.
You are probably just out of college were even looking at someone elses code is considered a great moral sin against humanity, where just the though of this could bar you away from higher education forcing you to live your life without being able to obtain a higher degree. In business if it works they use it even if it is a copy and paist. If it was something more problematic like say Using the source from an other companies code who had a strong license on it... Or using GPL code for non GPL reasons then there would be some consern. But for posting giving help to some one who wants to know how to do something it is basicly a non-issue.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
>Of course it is. This kind of thing happens all the time.
This may be completely commonplace, but it is certainly not legal. Simply posting something in a public place does NOT put it in the public domain, and contrary to what many people in this forum are saying, failing to attach a copyright notification to something does NOT place it in the public domain either. Assuming the author posted the information after 1976 and is covered by american law, then the copyright act of 1976 provides for automatic copyright protections, unless there is some notification which explicitly puts it under a license which permits it use.
The original poster will probably never be called out if he leaves the situation as it stands he is still breaking the law. His options for avoiding this are to either find another copy of the code which is listed under a license, contact the author and ask for a license, or to rewrite the code.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
To the original poster:
If your company want to be completely honest and above-board and legal, it must ask if it's okay to use the code. If the author says no or demand$ too much, you must not use it.
Unless you are fortunate enough to get a fast "sure, go ahead and use it" you will miss your deadline. Sometimes a little cash - maybe as little as the amount of man-hours it would take you to rewrite and test it - will be enough to expedite getting permission.
By the way, for all you know, the tech lead did ask permission, or the tech lead knows the code is already been dedicated to the public domain.
If it were me, I'd talk to the tech lead. If the tech lead doesn't have permission already and isn't willing to go to management and do The Right Thing (TM), I'd start circulating your resume and talk to management about it. When you do talk to management, present them with options that are likely to 1) be acceptable to management and 2) get the product out the door as soon as possible.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Of course it is. This kind of thing happens all the time. So does fraud, burglery and worse but it doesn't mean it's legal. Frankly, I'm glad you don't work for us. The fact that you would consider "rewriting" code that works well just because it was written by someone external to your company doesn't speak well for your sense of business priorities or usage of time. Nobody in their right mind would ever purchase your services or products again. They would not rewrite the code because it was created externally, they would rewrite it because legally and ethically they have not been given rights to use the code. I would not do business with anybody who would knowingly use code of dubious license.
> The original author didn't attach any particular license to the code.
I think that says it all. Yes, that means they have no license to the code and must ask for one. End of story.
Using Code Examples
This book is here to help you get your job done. In general, you may use the code in this book in your programs and documentation. You do not need to contact us for permission unless you're reproducing a significant portion of the code. For example, writing a program that uses several chunks of code from this book does not require permission. Selling or distributing a CD-ROM of examples from O'Reilly books does require permission
http://safari.adobepress.com/0596009747/xsltckbk2-PREFACE-2 I would assume other O'Reilly titles likely have similar licenses but it would be wise to check.
>> The original author didn't attach any particular license to the code.
> I think that says it all.
Yes, but it does not say what you seem to imply. If the original author did not grant permission, you can not use the code (but you can implement the same algorithm yourself, at least as long as there is no patent preventing that). Note that the author does not have to include such a permission in every piece of code. It can be in an accompanying file, or it can even be in the Terms of Use of whatever bulletin board or website he used to publish it. But you have to check that.
Granted, as long as you do not distribute the source, nobody will spot a 200 line piece of code and this kind of copying indeed happens all the time, but that does not make it legal in the strict sense of the word. I once wanted to use a small library that is floating about out there without any license/copyright statement. As it would have been possible for our customers to spot the use, I checked with our legal department and they were very firm: if I could get the author to explicitly approve it, it was OK, otherwise not. He did not reply, so I had to scrap the idea.
Linux user since early January 1992.
IAALBTINLA (I am a lawyer but this is *not* legal advice)
1. The original write owns the copyright to the code.
2. By posting it to the BB, he might have agreed to license it under whatever terms by which the board operates. This might mean you have some license to use it (either implied or actual).
3. The code copied by the developer might not be enough of the work as a whole to considered infringement.
4. One test for determining whether computer code infringes copyright, in the USA at least, is the classic, yet ambiguous "abstraction, filtration, comparison" test. (If the copying was complete with comments, then that's not so good for the copier, but if the code accomplishes a trivial function, then not so much.)
5. Speaking generally, it's important to be on the lookout for situations like this. For instance, if code is copied from an open-source project, then significant consequences can follow (c.f. the Asus story below this one.)
6. If you are concerned, talk with your company's legal counsel.
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Gee, it's a dilemma: You could (1) talk to the guy about it, or (2) wave it over the global press under a pseudonym pretending that no one will guess who you are.
Let me think about this for a minute...
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
I wonder if your project lead reads /. ?
I'd also consider the possibility that you don't know the whole story. I found a version of some well known C code for Java and wanted to be sure, before I included it in a FOSS project, that even though it's based on a mathematical algorithm and that the code for that function in other languages has been published in many FOSS programs, that I could include the code in a FOSS project. In the long run, I tracked it down through several people and basically nobody cared what it was included in and I don't think anyone even wanted to bother to license it. In the long run I kept all the emails and notified the project owner. We did make mention of it in the comments, but didn't feel it appropriate to include any guess at licensing info.
It's possible the project head already has permission to use it or may even know the programmer who posted the code to the forum. There could be any number of legit reasons why nothing was said about it in the code comments. It's even possible that post was made my the project leader under a different name.
To me, this sounds like the OP is a quite young programmer who is looking for a chance to lead a moral crusade rather than get the job done. In my experience I avoid taking on employees like that because they seem more focused on making sure everyone else follows their ethics than in doing a good job on the task at hand.
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'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
You don't know that the poster had permission to post the code in the first place.
Just for me personally, if I put some code I wrote out in a forum, I expect someone to use it other than myself. Someone asks a question, I throw out a chunk of code, we're done. I don't care where it ends up. Likewise if I find an example that someone has put on the web when I was searching for something to do that exact thing, I'll grab it and adapt it to my use on the principle that that's what it's there for.
Forums can be kind of a greyer area. I once had a guy who was maintaining a system I wrote put a decent chunk of my code in a forum; source code, mind you, not just a script. It was a whole program, and while I never sold that particular piece to do anything by itself, it was a part of a product I did make a decent bit of money on, and a pretty clear-cut breach of my IP for some joker to just post it (they'd signed a contract dealing with redistribution, so it was in writing).
I called them, they apologized, disciplined the guy, and hired me to do the change he'd been trying to do (he'd posted the code trying to get someone to tell him what it did), and paid me at a higher rate. I let it slide because it wasn't a big deal (non-critical code), and they dealt with it to my satisfaction.
If, at some later date, I'd found that code verbatim in someone else's system, I might have mentioned it to them, as an aside, but I wouldn't have tried to claim damages or make them remove it. At that point it is WAY too difficult to trace provenance, and hard to prove any sort of knowing violation. It had been released, I'd taken it up from the people who released it, it was done.
In short: If someone releases code with no license attached and you use it and it turns out later it was licensed you're going to have to deal with the consequences of that. If it turns out it wasn't licensed (or was BSD licensed) you're in the clear, even if it was a case like mine where the code was released by a party that wasn't authorized to release it.
The internet is a nice tool to keep from re-inventing the wheel, but if you take anything more than a little subroutine, you better know what rights you have with regards to it because it can seriously bite you in the ass.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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.
Not specific to this situation, but there almost certainly has to be a practical limit to how much code you need before something is under copyright. For example, the single line
(+ 1 1)
could not be reasonably subject to copyright (IMHO, IANAL, etc.) IIRC there is some rule about originality that this would not satisfy. OK, what about:
;Code to print out "hello world"
(defun hello-world () (format t "hello world"))
Exceedingly simple, entirely trivial, and arguably not creative or original, but more gray than the first example.
What about:
;Code to add two numbers and multiply by a third number
(defun calc-with-three-numbers (a b c) (* (+ a b) c))
Still trivial, but you get the idea - at what point do we cross the line into copyrightable material?
Also, let's assume (for the sake of argument) the last example above is copyrightable. If someone else independently working on the same problem does:
;(x+y)*z
(defun f1 (x y z) (* (+ x y) z))
Would that constitute a copyright violation of the above formula? They do precisely the same thing using exactly the same algorithm, but look very different. Is the second in violation of copyright of the first?
In practice, some problems have an "optimal" solution that most skilled programmers will eventually converge on (if they are good at their jobs). To my mind this might end with comments being (sometimes) copyrightable and code being defined as a mathematical algorithm, which (IMHO) is much closer to the true situation. But I don't know what the legal definitions are for this issue - anybody know if Groklaw has dug up any related material?
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
TRIPS.
Money for nothing, pix for free
You have copyright on everything you create by default and you never lose it (unless you give it away). If you don't register it the result is that you simplu can't sue for quite as much as you could otherwise (although you can still sue).
Note however that if you publish in a certain medium you may be providing certain implied license terms even if you explicitly claim otherwise. For example you can't put a notice on a website saying that all copying of it (outside strict fair use) is prohibited as to even read that notice it has to be copied (to the user's ram and browser cache if nothing else). Likewise usenet posts also would have an implied license to be distributed via usenet servers.
Sure, it might be copyrighted inherently, but clearly the public posting of source code in a self-help forum provides an implied license to use...
I'm new to the company, and the developer who copied the code is the project lead.
You married? Got any kids? A mortgage?
If the answer to any of the above is yes, then shut the hell up about it and get on with your day.
If the answer to all of the above is no and you're in the mood for an ethics experiment - mention it to someone. Have your resume ready first. You're about to learn what the business world is really like.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
I guess it all depends on what the code does - if it's a collection of utility functions (like string manipulation) which anyone could write during a coffee break, then I guess you can forget about it and move on with your life.
If, on the other hand, the code is a complex algorithm which took months of research to develop AND is the main feature of your app - then I guess you should spend some time and try to figure out the license thing.
I guess one should be 'politically correct' up to a certain point - when the subject can, in theory, harm others. Beyond that it doesn't make sense and one should focus on more important aspects of reality, rather then examine everything under the microscope, even though there's very little to see there.
Normally, it's best to err on the side of caution write original code. In this case the code was 200 lines long. Now, I know length shouldn't be an issue, but how many different ways can/will you write your for-loops or AJAX code. The OP mentioned that the code was 200 lines long, which isn't very much. Even if the OP's group were to rewrite the code, it might not look very different from the original code (not counting stupid things like variable or function name changes). It's at these gray areas, that I, personally, tend to not care as much. Now, if it were an entire library of code, that would be different.
as is mentioned upthread, published works are owned by their authors by copyright in the USA,
I'd prefer an ethical behavior on the part of all of my employees; some do better jobs than others-- but ethics comes first. Our code is clean, was clean, will be clean, and adheres to the licensing and copyright strictures.
Dry-ripping/cutting&pasting code from any old website is beyond stupid, it's lax, possibly criminal, and well, you haven't vetted the code against standards and practices-- what if it blows up or creates a nice nugget of crap in otherwise vetted code.
I disagree with your practices. They put output over ethics, suggest unscrupulous use of code, violate standards practices, and create possible conflicts with other code. Swiping unknown code from a random website's bad practice.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
The only issue is that if the author wrote the code at work, it's not his to give away.
Personally, I'd forget that that I found it.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
That's true, of course, but there is only so much you can do. Should the submitter do a search for all other code in the application and see if any of it is stolen? I do get your point, though, but this is such a common practice that I think most developers don't even think twice about doing it, which, I concede, doesn't make it automatically legal.
I feel sorry for people that don't drink, because when they get up in the morning, that's as good as they're gonna feel
What if to join the forum something was buried in the agreement like "you agree that any code or comments that you post are released to the public domain for others to use and modify"?
I haven't checked for this sort of thing but if I was administrating one of these forums, I'd certainly have put something like this in the terms-of-use. After all, as many people have pointed out disallowing use of posted code runs counter to the purpose of the forum.
My question is whether a term like this in a use agreement can override the implicit copyright.
> Otherwise, what is to stop FDR family from claiming copyright on the phrase "we have nothing to fear by fear itself"?
About four things:
First, it's too short to be a likely candidate for copyright protection. Copyright is about creative works, not short phrases. The most protection one can get for a short phrase is trademark, and that's only for use in connection with selling things. For example, if the FDR family sold bear repellent spray, they might be able to use "Nothing to fear but fear itself" as a trademarked slogan in connection with the sale of the bear spray.
Second, back in FDR's day one had to actually register the copyright to get protection, and renew from time to time. The deadlines to register and renew have all long since passed. The quote comes from his inaugural address in 1933 (in reference to the Great Depression). See chart of copyright by year.
Third, most use of the phrase would be "fair use." The concept of "fair use" is that I can't stop others from commenting about me or my work, or reporting on the news, or parodying my work. Simply saying "FDR said 'the only thing we have to fear is fear itself'" is definitely reporting on the news and matters of public concern. Quoting the speech in a biography is the same thing.
And, further, it's possible that there's an exception in this case because the government does not claim copyright on government works. It's a hard sell--while he was a government official, it's not like his job was to produce maps or photos the same way that NASA releases its maps without copyright--but worht a shot.
(IANAL, but studied IP law)
Copyright is the protection of the expression of an idea, not the idea itself. When you write that short story, or take that picture, your expression of the idea has certain protections when it is created. Registering the copyright is not a condition for protections of copyright.
Copyright cannot be abandoned unless you explicitly release into public domain. Registration is only to put everyone on notice that you have created something and seek certain advantages from the government if someone takes your copyrighted work. It is easier to prove your case in court if you have registered with USPTO and are seeking to prevent someone from using your work (infringing). Essentially, registering bolsters your claim that the work is your expression and not the opposing parties.
They can claim all sorts of things, but that does not mean it will stand up in court. Even if the forum owns the copyright, that does not help the person who has not licensed it from anyone.
In general, letters sent by post are considered property of the recipient.And books are considered the property of the purchaser, but that does not make them the copyright holder.
So a statement made for public consumption might be considered property of the public.Nope, it is assumed all copyrighted material is for public consumption, since copyright law exists to promote publication. Try republishing a story from a large newspaper and see what happens.
Otherwise, what is to stop FDR family from claiming copyright on the phrase "we have nothing to fear by fear itself"?Well, several things. First, that is not the exact words he used, but paraphrase. He said, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Second, it predates the copyright extension so it has entered the public domain by now. it was said in 1933 and the copyright expired in 1961. Third, Copyright law includes a large and somewhat vague doctrine called "Fair Use" which makes it legal to use parts of or entire works for certain purposes, subject to certain restrictions. Using a quote like this almost always fair use. Finally, Providing attribution, that is FDR said, "...the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..." is a fact, and facts are not copyrightable.
check out the USCO site for more info.
I am not a lawyer. Are you?Nope, but I can read and I'm not afraid to educate myself on issues that effect me.
So the worst case is that the copyright owner makes your company change the code at some point in the future. If you put the recommended comment in, your company will know (i) its not your fault and (ii) you were heads-up enough to look into the issue a little further when you noticed it.
Bad idea, the comment is enough to acknowledge that the company (or an agent on its behalf) knew that the ownership of the code was legally questionable and could be used to remove any protection that the company could have to claim permission to distribute the code. If the copyright owner decides to sue, best case scenario hes able to sue the company successfully, worst case scenario hes able to sue the person who wrote the comment acknowledging the muddied ownership of the code.
Hopefully you're working for a decent guy, and you can just say "Hey, dude, I was researching this bug, and in the process, found this code on this forum. You think we should be worried about copyright issues?"
He may, like several slashdotters in this thread, be completely unaware of the fact that code is automatically copyrighted in the US.
He may have been aware, but just lazy, and say "Yeah, we should do something about that".
He may say "Who cares? No one will ever find out!". In that case, *then* you may consider going over his head and raising the issue with his superiors.
If he's a decent guy at all, he'll appreciate your coming to him politely with your concerns. But even if he's the type of vindictive halfwit likely to take offense at your discovery, he'd probably be hard pressed to come up with an excuse for taking action against you. And really, if you're working for someone like that, you should strongly consider looking for a new position elsewhere.
So Vista Service Pack 1 is about ready for release?
IANAL, but I have had to deal with similar situations in open source projects.
On one hand, I have found that people who post code fragments online generally intend for people to copy and adapt their works. However, obviously you don't want to rely on this norm for protection, even if it was provided specifically as sample code.
The best option is to first make a good effort to contact the author of the code and express an interest in using the code. You may or may not want to discuss the whole situation with the author without feeling the situation out-- that might be an act of goodwill but it could also put your business more at risk. I would probably initially just state that you are interested in obtaining copyright permission to use this code in your application. See where that goes.
If you cannot contact the author I would suggest rewriting the code to be on the safe side.
Also note that there is a chance that you will get a response (like I have) stating something to the effect that "I don't know whether I even wrote the code anymore, but fwiw, go ahead." In that case, I would tend to avoid copying and pasting.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
ObDisclaimer: IANAL But most forum software tends to carry a disclaimer to protect the forum host, which says something to the effect that anything posted on the forum becomes their property forever to redistribute in any manner they please to indemnify them. They may (or may not) pass along that indemnity to users of the forums. But to the point, this isn't really your problem. It's the plagiarist-dev's problem. He may have obtained permission from the source after seeing the code and deciding it would fit the bill. He may have just written it himself previously and recycled it on the forum and in the current project. Or he may just made some assumptions and figured nobody would be the wiser. The ultimate question is, would you be reasonably expected to discover this plagiarism, and held responsible for not telling anyone? If not, you might want to just keep on walking, in the remote chance anyone will ever notice or care, it's still on him or someone else on the team, and probably not you since you're the new guy. If you're terrified of it being pinned on you, only then open that can of worms. Makes you wonder if it's that bad code though that's causing problems, since it was lifted verbatim, possibly without enough changes to fit your application, or just has some dumb error.
Nope.
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?
So let's be honest, this is a pretty common occurrence. Often times when people post code online in a forum, it's expected by the author that people will lift the code... in fact, that's why it's being posted to the forum! I understand that without an explicit license or authorization from the original author that this is not legal... good, fine, whatever - not trying to debate the legalities of it.
What bothers me here is that the original poster seems to be implying some act of malice on the part of his co-worker. Now, I don't know the full details of the situation, maybe there are valid reasons why he would feel that way. But he didn't even hint at that in his question to Slashdot but does mention his inclination to report him to managment. Really?? I mean... REALLY??? Could this not be an honest mistake stemming from a misunderstanding of the law? Perhaps the co-worker had private exchanges with the code author regarding using the code. Should portraying your co-worker as a criminal to management really even be considered as your first course of action?
I'll let others give their suggestions on how to deal with the situation, but the way the co-worker was portrayed here just rubbed me wrong. I've seen this same thing plenty of times, and it's never been anything but an innocent mistake... both on the part of the person copying and the person posting the code, because in my personal experiences the poster's intent was to make the code freely available but lacking knowledge of copyright law prevented them from expressly stating so in the forum. I'm guessing there's a good chance it can be resolved fairly easily without pissing anyone off or getting anyone fired.
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)
Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
The forum rules terms may claim that, but the likelihood of them being able to defend that in court is a very different manner.
Chances are if they didn't pay to have the code snippets coded, or provide an incentive for doing so, that they wouldn't be able to claim the code as a work for hire.
They would also have to deal with the fact that in most cases the code snippets came from somewhere else. While from time to time the code might be written on the fly for a specific question, in many cases the code is going to come from a project of some sort. Without an explicit agreement to transfer the rights, the forum shouldn't have any claim to copyright on the various snippets.
More likely, the forum follows orthodoxy and states that the code and posts aren't their responsibility and that they have the right to host the posts. Which buys them some freedom from being sued for somebody else's content. Meaning that as long as they remove any infringing posts when given an appropriate take down notice, they aren't responsible for any infringement.
But IANAL so YMMV.
Burning a $20 bill makes everybody (except you) richer. With a reduced money supply everybody else's dollar becomes more valuable. It takes a while to filter through to the labour market, but it does. That bill represent the wealth that you brought to everybody else so that one of them will give you something if you bring it to them. If you burn it instead, they still benefit from the work you did to earn that money, but now you won't be able to get them to give you stuff so they also get to keep the stuff and sell it to somebody else.
You don't see a license attached to a bootlegged DVD or game, either. Because the license was attached to the ORIGINAL material, and violated in the distribution of the mp3. As several people have brought up, there's a possibility that this code was taken from something that was licensed, and given away as implicitly free.
Regarding the OP, I'm siding with the "forget it and leave it be" camp. If you don't make a fuss, the only person that could get in potential trouble if it turned out to be rotten would be the guy who wrote it. There's no assumed responsibility on you to check everybody else's code for licensing issues, and nobody could prove that you'd made this discovery, so you could feign ignorance. Well, unless a vigilante Slashdotter tracks you down and brings the law down on you. You might want to consider hiding.
Unless you've got some ENORMOUS ethical battle to fight on this particular issue, ignore it. Or rewrite the code on your own time to keep the project on-schedule.
The fact you're looking up code on the internet when your job would quite possibly make me feel as if you didn't understand basic coding, and were an incorrect fit for a particular agency.
I consider myself a pretty good coder, but when I recently was tasked with writing a wrapper to run a shell command and capture stdout, stderr, and redirect a file into stdin. I wasn't sure where to really start...
This MSDN article (which I found via google) went a long way towards covering the topic:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/190351
And that sample code proved invaluable. It easily saved me several hours. Code like that is very domain specific, and unless you've spent a lot of time around pipes and create process win32, it doesn't matter how good you are at understanding basic coding, or even advanced coding.
I'd managed to write a basic version of what I wanted using ANSI C's popen but was running into popen's limitations (like the dos box window flashing open). From reading I knew that CreateProcess in the win32 api gave me the control I needed to suppress the window, and this example REALLY helped me out.
I've actually left out a lot of caveats here, and IANAL, but most of the caveats are things that only get settled after litigation, which is something you want to avoid. People have replied to me talking about things like 'works created for public use' or talking about how anything in comp.* on usenet is essentially meant to be used. Neither of these are actually strong legal arguments, nor would a judge accept 'well no one has sued anyone over use of code from this source before' as a valid defense. This kind of thinking is hopelessly naive. In point of fact, companies which have used source code under the GPL and failed to follow the terms of that license have run into hot water numerous times before and the GPL is a much less restrictive license than 'no license at all'. My point is that if the OP wants to be in the clear (i.e. no gray areas that might involve litigation down the road, even litigation his employer is likely to win) then he basically has the above listed options.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
I doubt it. Fair use means convincing a court that the use you're making of the material is really fair. In many cases, that means writing something that's sufficiently different that the court believes you're not really competing directly with the original author -- for example, a book review that quotes a few lines from a book isn't likely to be used as a substitute for buying the original story. Quoting a few particularly telling lines can give a good idea of the book's topic and style, so doing so will generally be considered fair use. This case seems to be almost entirely different however -- it's not writing something new or original about that code, but simply using it as it was originally intended. Even when courts do look at the amount copied, they rarely look exclusively at just the raw amount involved -- they frequently look at both the percentage of the original that was copied, and the percentage that the copied material constitutes of the final work in which it is copied. If I copy 200 lines from War and Peace, it would generally be easier to justify than if the 200 lines being copied were virtually 100% of the original (which sounds like it might easily be the case here). Likewise, if I write a long book and copy one-liners from here and there as titles to chapters and such, it's easier to justify than if all I've done is paste in a single large quote from somewhere, and that's all I'm publishing.
Even though I doubt this would qualify as fair use, publishing exactly the same code under other circumstances might well be fair use. For example, if I was writing a book on coding style, and included all 200 lines of this snippet as an example, and wrote a line-by-line analysis of how it was written, that would almost certainly improve the chances of its being justified as fair use.
The universe is a figment of its own imagination.
// While it is highly unlikely that such a code snippet would cause problems down the road, it is not impossible that it could.Well it could be a lot more likely now, if the original author reads \. I don't think reading \. will have any impact on any problems the code snippet may or may not cause
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You *never* know if someone has permission to distribute code, even if they sell it to you.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
If the original author posted the code to a forum as an example, without disclaiming any assumed or implied rights, then you are free to use it. The mere act of publicly posting the example is clearly an act that grants permission to use, however, you should look at the forum copyright policy as that may have further limitations.
There is a question of provenance of the code. Just because you found it on some web site doesn't mean THEY didn't copy it from somewhere else and remove the copyright notices - it happens. It's also possible that both got if from a public domain source (there isn't that much code in the public domain, but there is some). However, I strongly suggest you report it to your superiors within the company. If they decide not to do anything about it then don't worry.
Copyright infringement is one of those things where ignorance is not bliss. The longer it goes on, the higher your company's potential liability.
Or should we just start making Xerox copies of the zombie survival guide?
They're called photocopies, you trademark infringer!
You make a valid point, which is why the concept of due diligence exists. Exhibiting due diligence is one thing that tends to set the professionals apart from the amateurs. But any way you cut it, just grabbing a substantial, unattributed bit of code off a web site and using it in a commercial product doesn't sound much like performing due diligence, and the OP is right to be concerned.
To the OP: If I were in your position, for a start I wouldn't touch the code that already exists so it's very clear I didn't put it there or have anything to do with using someone else's copyrighted code. An informal approach drawing it to management's attention is probably a reasonable first action to try and restore compliance. If it's a larger company, they might have a dedicated compliance contact in the legal department you could approach if management is unresponsive. In any case, if the situation is not resolved quickly and appropriately, I would be planning on finding another job as soon as possible, since you really don't want to get caught up in any potential legal action, and it sounds like you're in the optimum position to become the fall guy.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Actually, they did have zombie lawyers. The Beast killed everyone at Wolfram & Hart and they all came back as zombies.
Camp A people would fire someone for taking the time to worry about this because it happens all the time and you're never going to get caught, and the original author of the code probably meant it to be public anyway, even though its illegal.
Camp B people would fire someone for NOT taking the time to worry about this because its illegal, regardless of intent of the original author and if it came to light it would expose the company to bad press and possibly litigation.
Camp C people have no earthly clue how copyright law actually works and are speaking out of their collective asses. Sadly, these people would most likely reason along the same lines as Camp A out of ignorance rather than malice and simply behave the same way with the exception that they don't realize they're breaking the law.
The original poster can certainly decide what kind of person he is (probably B since he asked the question in the first place) and can probably make a guess about what kind of people his employers are (I'm guessing A, again since he had to ask). Then you have to decide what is more important, your job or your ethics. It is a slippery slope when you first start copying code. I had a friend who copied code once. Now he professionally eats babies. True story.
The fact is that all the commonsense notions about how copyright law works or should work don't take into account that copyright law is not written by individuals, but largely by companies like Disney and Warner Brothers (among others), companies that have a vested interest in maintaining control over a certain mouse and rabbit (among others), both of whom would now long since be in the public domain if not for the endless succession of copyright extensions lobbied for by said corporations. Originally (well, since 1909) copyright expired after 28 years, or 56 if you decided to renew it. And this was a copyright you had to explicitly register. In 1976, copyright became automatic and consisted of life plus 50 years after the authors death (or a static 75 years for 'work for hire'). In 1998 it became life + 70 and either 120 years after creation, or 95 years after publication, whichever is sooner. Its interesting to note the effect on Mickey Mouse. Created in 1928, MM would have left copyrighted status (though still been covered under trademark restrictions) in 1984. Because of the 1976 act, that was pushed to 2003. The 1998 act pushed that back to 2023 at the earliest. So look for another copyright law in 2018 or so.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Layne
Reading the comments for this story it's almost hilarious how many people see no problem whatsoever with ripping off code and passing it off as your own. Ripping it off is wrong legally, but more important passing it off as your own is wrong ethically.
I'm sorry, I misinterpreted what you meant by 'make a buck from cmdr taco' and assumed you were cutting and pasting auth code from the code for slashdot. In the corrected case, you can't sue someone for reproducing something if you knew the natural result of performing an action would be that the item would be reproduced (you know exactly what the post button does). In addition, if the code you are writing can't be substantially implemented in any other way, or more than 1 or 2 ways, then its not copyrightable. I can't copyright code that does some simple thing like deleting a file in java because its simply not possible to do it in more than a couple different ways. The same would apply to this auth snippet I imagine. Note that in a real world situation (one in which it wasn't patently clear that your goal in posting code was to enable litigation, and one in which it was a bit more ambiguous whether the code could only be implemented in X many ways), both of these situations are likely to leave you open to being sued by some asshat who wants to tie up your company in red tape, whether or not the law eventually comes down on your side. Its safer just to steer clear of such situations entirely, whenever reasonably possible.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
If you instead rewrite the code, you face the possible claim that your new code is a derivative work which is also covered by the original author's copyright. The "cleanroom" approach is sometimes used to avoid this. Have someone who has seen the original code spec the functions, and give the spec but not the original code to a programmer who has never seen the original. Document carefully what you have done and why. If the programmer who writes the code has no access to the original, he can't copy it. Then you only have to worry about software patents -- but that's a separate issue.
I hope you don't take this wrong, but you're an *idiot*. I really hope nobody takes your advice.
It's entirely possible the guy wrote the code and also posted it to the forum, perhaps under another name. It's also possible he obtained permission to use the code.
But posting code publicly most certainly does not license other people to use or copy it and professional software development organizations take such things *very* seriously.
"You have copyright on everything you create by default and you never lose it (unless you give it away)."
I have had people, I think on the Creative Commons mailing lists, tell me that this is not the case in their countries... That the work must be original or creative or something along those lines and that things like a recording of water cooler conversations and the like would likely fail this and not get copyright protection.
I don't claim to understand this at this point, but if so, there are some things you can create in some places which don't get automatic copyright. But in that case, I guess you wouldn't get a copyright even if you tried to register it...
Can anyone give any insight into this for the layman?
all the best,
drew
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
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.
Actually, the company could be in potential trouble, and depending how critical the code is (and whether the one example is an isolated case or part of a pervasive trend), everyone who depends on the company for their livelihood could be negatively impacted.
I believe that you are a lawyer.
Your advice is, indeed, a legal way to proceed. It is also impossible for the poster. That's not one of his choices.
Were I him, I would not admit to having noticed anything. Possibly, depending on personality factors, I might get into a discussion with the other code about copyrights, laws, and ethics, but I would be very careful to not admit having noticed that he might have done anything improper.
You are talking here of a new hire. The low man on the totem pole. And this is a case where the proprietaries aren't entirely clear. (E.g., this person should definitely not attempt to acquire a commercial license, as he wouldn't have the right to comit his company to anything.)
FWIW, I consider there to be a fair chance that the example is from a standard text on algorithms. I certainly have no proof that this is true, but it might well be. If so, the PURPOSE of the book was to share how to do various things, say Shell sorts. (Probably not, as that's now commonly built into languages.)
That which you are suggesting is probably something that even the lead programmer wouldn't be able to get the department to do. Yes, it's the legal approach. And it's total impracticality is a small part of what's wrong with the legal approach, and why essentially nobody uses it.
Personally, my favored way of avoiding this problem is to use GPL software...but it doesn't totally get around the problems that the legal approach has saddled us with. We weren't told what license the issued product would be under, and it might BE under GPL. This wouldn't solve any of the problems in this case...this case where there shouldn't BE any problems.
Text published in a public forum without an attached license should BE public domain, with all liability resting on the person or entity who published it. (I'll grant that this would make the GPL a lot more like the BSD license, but in an ideal world those two would be identical in effect. It's the imperfections that cause me to adhere to the GPL.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
"If the author of the code posted it in a forum, I would personally call that implicit permission to use the code.Otherwise, why even post it? "
If the author of the song threw it in *a lot* of public mass media, I would personally call that implicit permission to use the song. Otherwise, why make it so public?
"As to the legality of downloading it, if it is showing in your browser window, you have already downloaded it."
As to the legality of downloading it, if it going out your speakers, you have already downloaded it.
"Therefore I conclude the units LoC and KLOC are the same."
Unless, of course, one KLOC means 1024 LOC.
IANAL; YMMV.
http://outcampaign.org/
How many angels can sit on the head of a pin?
Just because you don't know the source of this expression doesn't mean it is offtopic.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
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.
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...
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
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.
Was the bug within the copied code? Sometimes copyright isn't an issue with copied code. Its product quality.
The three instances of copied code I've found in our commercial product caused major headaches because the code got past QA and failed in the field. It didn't scale, had timing issues, etc.
In all three cases when I confronted the programmers they could not explain how "their" code worked. In all three cases I didn't have them fired. I made them fix it and apologize to the boss (who had to apologize to our customers).
As a result, I now have two decent programmers who write their own code. They ask for help when its needed instead of copying off of the internet.
Enjoy,
It's just the normal noises in here.
You would be hard pressed to be more wrong. All creative works are copyrighted and unless licensed are not free for anyone to use except under very specific conditions.
>Ever find a quarter on the ground? Somebody ever give you one? Did you require a deed to prove you had the right to the quarter?
That's an asinine comparison. A quarter isn't a creative work. Quarters are not covered under intellectual property law. The comparison you're looking for is finding a novel manuscript on the ground, picking it up, putting your name on it and selling it to a publisher.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
If code is posted on a forum, whether or not it has a license attached to it may not matter. Many forums used by programmers require that posters give the right to use the example code posted, etc. Please check with forums FAQ before panicking.
You should probably just mention it to him and offer to rewrite it. It would be wise to not act in an accusatory manner when bringing it up. Remember that there are a lot of sources out there that are meant to be used as example code, and that if permission to copy is given it isn't "cheating" to do so.
>Personally, my favored way of avoiding this problem is to use GPL software...
This *causes* legal problems, it doesn't solve them and is bad advice. How you can use GPL code in conjunction with your proprietary software is highly legally constrained. If you use GPL libraries, the GPL license then applies to your code. Supposedly LGPL gets around this, but not really due to ambiguities in the license (the license uses the ambiguous term "derives from" which has a different meaning when used with object oriented software). Note that glibc has a special exception, and that it is generally ok to use.
>We weren't told what license the issued product would be under, and it might BE under GPL.
It doesn't matter whether the software he is releasing is under GPL. You can't just apply the GPL to someone else's non GPL code without their permission. You'd not only be opening up your company to lawsuit, but probably everyone who uses your code.
The GPL is not a magic license that you can invoke and use other people's software however you want. It is a useful license in many situations, but it clearly does nothing to help the OP.
Remember the windows 2000 source code link. Most of the code in the TCP/IP stacks were from Novell. But did they have permission to use it? Who knows.
In this case though, I'd say public forum is public use. I've posted lots of code in forums as tutorials or tips. I'm not going to write a EULA or specify it must be GPL, LGPL, Mozilla Public License, EULA, BSD License, or make up my own. If I post it, and you find it useful, use it.
That said, if you have a really guilty conscience about it, they use the forum to contact the poster and see what he says. I'm sure he'll "say, yeah.. sure, whatever."
DarkMantle I been bored, so I started a blog.
The problem with copyright law is that if you don't explicitly allow use of your content then no use is allowed (except "fair" use that is not well defined).
So if you want the content you post to be freely and legally usable by everyone you have to license it. You don't have to bother with all kinds of FOSS licenses as you can just declare that it is in the public domain, which means that you are still the copyright holder but you license your work to everyone to do whatever they want with it.
So the OP raises a valid point: that code represents a risk to the organization he works for. Perhaps a small risk, but if later it is discovered it might cost money to the organization. If this was code used in a FOSS project and someone posted a comment about it I believe the issue would be immediately addressed by either locating the source and verifying that it is reusable (and documenting the fact in the source0 or replacing it. A closed source project might react differently (such as by making sure the code is not exposed to the outside world so that infringement can not be detected) but it still would want to reduce the risks involved in using unlicensed content.
This aspect of copyright law was perhaps good at the time when the mere fact that a work is published indicated that someone made an effort and investment in publishing it. It is very inappropriate today because no real effort and practically no investment is needed to publish content, and people do post lots of content with the intention that everybody could use it freely. This should be changed and this change would be good for everybody, and especially for those who don't want their works freely distributed, because one of the arguments available now is that there is no way to tell content that is freely distributable from content that is not, and most of the unmarked content out there was meant to be freely distributable by the autheor, despite the author's failure to explicitly attach a license (including a license that puts the content in the public domain).
IANAL-However, Code that is not created by someone who has signed a work for hire agreement could create a title defect. My IP lawyer (who probably reads this site) says they're like cockroaches, and give investors nightmares, because it can create SERIOUS issues. Well, I mean, only serious issues if you like owning your company, being able to raise capital, not getting your pants sued off (sin pantolones es no beuno!)
Again- IANAL
The HR dept told them to stop for H&S reasons.
Would it pass for college work?
Yeah, but there is a big difference between the college code and business code. What's written for review from a prof. and what's written for your customers to get their application on spec, on time, and under budget.
Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what your country did to you
you are 100% correct. we stopped contracting indian firms for Coding on the cheap because every time we got something back more OSS code was shoveled in. They would even strip most of the comments. We had one product come back with most of ffmpeg embedded in it.
This happened so much we stopped doing out of house programming and went back to internal programmers. Yes we tried several different companies... I swear tow of them were the same company operating under different names. The code style, comments, etc were identical in style to the first company.
If you want your app to be sanitized and 100% your companies property, you MUST hire in house programmers and instruct them that they can not use any OSS, snippets, etc... Their bag of tricks they bring with them must ALSO be not used. Programmer X brings his bag of tricks and suddenly your app has some of the same code that 4 other companies have in their apps.
But there lies the problem. management wants unrealistic deadlines and 100% origional code. they cant have both so programmers slip in things they find to make the deadline. Maybe if management actually get's educated and understands that writing code takes far longer than they think then they can get what they ask for.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Holy hell, someone finds some useful code posted on a forum, uses it illegally , and you report them to management??
There, fixed that for you. No charge.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
10 print "hello world"
20 goto 10
Who owns this code? I just wrote it out of my head because I am sure I read it in a book somewhere. I couldn't tell you which one it was so long ago. Some logic is just obvious. I could complicate the above code in order to "re-write" it but it, would still be the same thing. It seems to me that as long as you don't take something that you have found in its entirety and use as your own and distribute it there is some fair use there. Where that line is, is blurry. Is every sampled sound in some "popular" music that is used without explicit permission a violation of copyright? Then if i sample the sample of the sampled sound from that music and use a bit of that then, who's copyright did I violate? This whole discussion is terribly confusing...
I think the context matters. If some one posts a question on a forum, "How do I do x?" and some posts a reply, "This is how you do it . . ." then I think it's safe to assume that the code is going to be used.
This discussion is pretty scary. Of those posts I've read, a clear majority seem to be blatantly misrepresenting the most basic principles of copyright law. Whether this is out of ignorance or malice I don't know, but in many cases, it has now been moderated informative and/or insightful. Attempting to describe possible ethical actions the OP could take at this point seems to meet more derision and laughter than acknowledgement and agreement. And apparently some of our mods think it's funny to break the law, but trolling to point this out.
Slashdot used to be better than this, but it seems almost impossible to have any reasoned, objective discussion about copyright-related issues here now. Go ahead and mod me to hell for saying it; I've got karma to burn, and it has to be said.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Posting code publicly, aka in the public domain, aka distributing it without a license, does not put the code in the public domain? That's news to me!
"Posting code publicly, aka in the public domain, aka distributing it without a license, does not put the code in the public domain? That's news to me!"
Then you've been under a rock for the past 35 years or so. A split second of common sense would show how crazy your claim is. Songs are played on the radio, which is precisely akin to a public post. So can I record them off the radio and sell copies?
The sad part is 3 or 4 years ago, the Slashdot groupthink would be all in favor of sharing free information in public forums because information wanted to be free. That was the foundation of the internet and the origin of Usenet in the first place... i.e. a Users Network. But today, with copyrighted this and imaginary property that and patented other thing..., the consensus is no longer in support of the free exchange of information that was so dominant but rather the brainwashed "damnit you better adhere to the letter of the law or face serious consequences" groupthink.
Meanwhile, while this flame war is taking place here on slashdot, the users over at Usenet continue sharing information with each other freely as has been done for nearly 30 years now without concern and without thought of the cold chill of a copyright lawsuit crawling up their spine.
Ascalante: Your bride is over 3,000 years old.
Kull: She told me she was 19!
I think Aunt Tillie and her recipe for gingerbread cookies is a better analogy.
Or Bob Villa's instructions for how to build a deck.
Computer code is a series of instructions for how to do something. It's not a work of art.
I don't think Aunt Tilly or Bob can refuse others the right to use the series of instructions for making a cookie or building a deck. That would be ridiculous. The cookie police knocking on your door saying "sorry but you have to add the flour *after* the sugar or you owe Aunt Tillie a licensing fee". Absurd.
That said both Aunt Tillie and Bob *do* have a copyright on the exact words they wrote. So you can't just paste their instructions verbatim into the new cookbook or home improvement guide you're writing without their permission.
IANAL
Extreme groupthink isn't healthy in any direction, precisely because it tends to trample on any dissenting views, no matter how valid.
Information doesn't want to be free. Information doesn't want anything at all. It simply exists, and it can be shared by those who have it. (The argument that "you can't prevent it being shared, so sharing it must be OK" is unhelpful: you can't realistically prevent me committing many evil acts, but that doesn't mean society should condone my doing so by legalising them.)
Similarly, empty-headed support for any copyright law is unhelpful, because you start equating the current law with ethics, which is always a dangerous path to follow. The law should follow ethics, not the other way around.
However, in this discussion, the original question seems to relate to a real situation, and therefore what is called for is a real answer based on real laws as they stand today. Misrepresenting those laws, whether because you happen to disagree with them or because you simply don't know what you're talking about, doesn't help the OP to solve his problem, and that's why I object to many of the replies and moderations in this discussion.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
- He is automatically assuming the original coder, who's now the lead he's meant to report to, acted with malice.
- He has absolutely no proof that the guy deliberately did anything wrong.
- He has absolutely no proof that they guy wasn't simply given the code by another coder on the project and has no idea it comes with a license.
- He has absolutely no proof that the guy hasn't already attained a license and it's in his desk drawer.
- He has absolutely no way of knowing if the original coder actually worked at that company and the code on the web is the derivative.
If he goes with his suggested options of an unapproved recode or reporting the issue to more senior management, without going to the lead first:- He automatically demonstrates he's assumed the worst of his lead without even talking to him.
- He has no respect for the reporting structure of the organization.
- He's willing to waste senior management's time with things a more junior manager should have looked at first.
- He's willing to waste company time doing a recode that may prove to be totally unnecessary and he certainly hasn't checked the facts to find out either way.
The only real option in this situation is to send a brief, tactful email to the lead along the lines of, "Hey, I noted [this code] is similar to [this code]. Just confirming you're aware and have made whatever decision you feel appropriate in terms of licensing?" Then keep the email.The lead may have a good reason, may not have had a good reason but takes an appropriate response (securing the license, recoding), or may choose to bury it.
ONLY when there's proof the lead's actions are deliberately sketchy does it become appropriate to consider jumping him in the chain and reporting, to ensure more senior management know they're being exposed to a liability.
Pretty much every other option demonstrates the new coder has serious issues with respecting the people he works with. He may or may not be right. If he isn't, he's pretty much destroyed himself in the organization. If he is, he still has to prove malice on the lead's part or he risks the lead saying, "Wow, I never knew. I wish he'd come to me instead of thinking he was above playing with the team."
"Leaving It Be" isn't an option either. The OP found the problem in researching a bug. Since that needs to be fixed and since the forum post came up in his search it's possible that he'll need to use fixes from forum replies. It then becomes obvious that he perpetuated the original mistake (if there was one- as others have pointed out the code may have originated with the lead developer who posted to the forum as well as using some of his base code in the company project).
I think he has reason to be careful. It's not clear from the OP, greenrom, how old the code is. Even a few years ago there was much less attention paid to the ethics of using publicly posted code. Greenrom's management might very well be more concerned about this in today's climate than when the original decision was made.
I think he has reason to be concerned as well. One smell. Could there be two? Maybe there is a lot of code lifted by the lead developer. It's every associate's responsibility to act to protect the company. Not knowing that answer makes approaching the developer one-on-one a risky proposition. To protect himself the LD may well begin finding fault with greenrom's work in an effort to have him fired. Flank assaults like that are harder to fight than head-on attacks in some kind of audit or investigatory situation.
My action (given the brevity of information) and this is not legal or other type of advice, would be to email boss, Cc the lead, subject: need clarification for license. body: While researching for a bug fix I stumbled on code significantly similar to ours. Pls be aware that some fault may exist in at . ref: These code blocks are nearly identical.
Simple, factual and non-accusatory. No further explanation about what was being searched or the possible impact or anything else as that is a management problem. Also, managers tend to only read the first three sentences. btw- redundancy intended. Make sure the point is clear.
As to the poster who proclaimed some defect in the OP for having used the internet to help him fix the bug. That's just ridiculous. It's a HUGE time saver.