[QCLUG] The Coding Ethics of Copy and Paste

[Baldy]

David Hinkle wrote:
>
> Ok, so here’s the discussion:
>
> You need to write some code that does some simple something you’ve 
> never done before. (For the sake of example: Sending an email with an 
> attachment from PHP). So you google it, find a helpful blog with an 
> article about how to send an email with an attachment. The short 
> article includes some explanation about how this works and includes a 
> short, 10 or so line example.
>
> There is no explicit license or release on the website because it’s 
> just someone’s blog.
>
> Do you feel comfortable copy/pasting his example code and editing it 
> to do your bidding? Or do you feel that it’s a no no?
>
> Legally speaking, the issue isn’t clear. Code has to be expressive to 
> be copyrighted. For example, there is precedent that you can’t 
> copyright a header file that only defines well known constants. On the 
> other hand, any expressive work automatically gains copyright as soon 
> as it’s written and the only way to find out otherwise is to litigate 
> over it, but in theory a completely functional piece of code with no 
> ‘art’ so to speak isn’t copyrightable. Then of course there is the 
> implied consent issue in regards to the article on the blog itself.
>
> Of course, some guy with a blog you’ve never probably isn’t going to 
> be suing you for copyright infringement for copying his 10 line 
> snippet. And the government is not likely to correct the grey area 
> mess that is copyright law anytime soon.
>
> In academia, in regards to the written word which copyright was 
> originally designed to protect , the copy paste of a single sentence 
> is often considered plagiarism if it goes undocumented. But what about 
> in programming? Where “a = a+1” and “b=b+1” are equivalent, and only 
> the variable names have been changed to protect the guilty?
>
> But we’re not lawyers, and we’re not academics. So let’s not discuss 
> the legal implications. Let’s discuss how you feel about it. Do you 
> feel it’s kosher? Do you feel it’s wrong? If the guy sitting next to 
> you did this would you feel ‘business as usual’ or would it be 
> something you go to the boss over? I want to know more about the 
> community standards on this issue.
>
>
> David
>
It has been going on for more years than you can count. If in the event 
it is artwork or a total article then you have to at bare minimum by 
including a link back to the supplying site. In the case of the example 
you used is probably in the web some place I know of 10 or more sites 
that have code snippets to download. The lists of sites that have either 
code or snippets of code is huge.