6 ms·

It's unclear if I will be able to license the code I post in answers as I see fit - or if SO is forcing me to use a certain license. I don't want my code to be

by ue_ 11y ago

It's unclear if I will be able to license the code I post in answers as I see fit - or if SO is forcing me to use a certain license. I don't want my code to be used in proprietary projects.

dtparr 11y ago
I'll admit to always being a little confused about this point with reference to StackOverflow. It's a question and answer site that generally involves small, self-contained bits of code. How is answering the question not giving an implicit license to use that answer? Are your answers really so substantive that licensing it seems appropriate? Should I not accept your answer if my question is about proprietary projects so that I can wait for someone with a different license preference to come along and give me an answer I can use? I suppose I've always looked at SO as devs helping devs, almost like a virtual coworking space. If the guy next to me is having trouble, and I look over and help him solve the issue, I'm not then going to go "oh, and btw, I'm going to need some attribution, and you're only allowed to use my solution if your project meets my criteria."
- DanBC 11y ago
  > It's a question and answer site that generally involves small, self-contained bits of code. What happens if I scrape SO so I can print and sell a book?
  - johnlbevan2 11y ago
    You get a poorly written book which no one buys because they can get the content for free online.
  - mikekchar 11y ago
    Collections are covered by copyright. So even though a recipe is not copyright-able, a book containing recipes is. One of the reasons you will see recipes filled with many paragraphs of filler is that it then becomes a literary work which is covered by copyright. Having said that, I would be surprised if the majority of code in SO is generally copyright-able. If I ask a question, "How do I initialise an object in C++" and the answer is a few lines of code, I do not think that this is a copyright-able work. It is a technique. Even if the code is long enough to be copyright-able, I don't think using the technique would be considered a derived work. Whatever the case, scraping portions of SO would be a copyright violation since it is a collection.
    - LoSboccacc 11y ago
      you still can do that and attribute it somewhere. doubly so with this change, since they require a link and it could be a qr code on the margin (not that I'd buy that book, still..)
- wnissen 11y ago
  Furthermore, there are numerous court cases that say that, e.g., letters to the editor may be printed in the newspaper, even the absence of any explicit permission. IANAL, but I'd be really surprised if there's any license or attribution required.
vanattab 11y ago
I am under the understanding that if you don't want your code to be used in proprietary projects then you should not post it on SO. I could be wrong though. I also think you could get around this by link to your code hosted elsewhere but I believe this is frowned upon.
- ue_ 11y ago
  I do not really mind if someone copies my code from SO and uses it in a proprietary project - though I certainly don't want to give that person a legal leg to stand on. I know it will happen inevitably, but saying "This code is licensed under the GNU GPL version 3 or later" will set alarms sounding in any developer paying attention. I don't know if by submitting an answer (containing code) I am transferring the copyright to SO, or if I can stand in the way of this by saying "Copyright <my name>" in the answer.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    You don't mind it but you want it to be completely illegal? Why?
    - ue_ 11y ago
      I don't mind it in the sense that I know it will happen anyway. I object to my code being used in proprietary projects, though with small snippets it's not such a big problem for me. But the problem is big enough for me to want to make sure the code is covered by a license I like. This is just how my priorities are to me.
      - johnlbevan2 11y ago
        Why would you answer a question if you then don't want the person to use the answer you give?
        jasonlotito 11y ago
        He's not saying that. He's saying that while he understands people will infringe his copyright, he still wants to help. He's not saying you can't use the answer, just that you need to use the answer under a license he chooses.
lorenzhs 11y ago
You could put the code portions of your answer in a gist/pastebin/whatever containing a license and link to that from your answer text. Your answer text would then be CC-BY-SA, but you could license your code under GPLv3 or whatever license you fancy.

by ue_ 11y ago

It's unclear if I will be able to license the code I post in answers as I see fit - or if SO is forcing me to use a certain license. I don't want my code to be used in proprietary projects.

dtparr 11y ago

I'll admit to always being a little confused about this point with reference to StackOverflow. It's a question and answer site that generally involves small, self-contained bits of code. How is answering the question not giving an implicit license to use that answer? Are your answers really so substantive that licensing it seems appropriate? Should I not accept your answer if my question is about proprietary projects so that I can wait for someone with a different license preference to come along and give me an answer I can use? I suppose I've always looked at SO as devs helping devs, almost like a virtual coworking space. If the guy next to me is having trouble, and I look over and help him solve the issue, I'm not then going to go "oh, and btw, I'm going to need some attribution, and you're only allowed to use my solution if your project meets my criteria."

DanBC 11y ago
> It's a question and answer site that generally involves small, self-contained bits of code. What happens if I scrape SO so I can print and sell a book?
- johnlbevan2 11y ago
  You get a poorly written book which no one buys because they can get the content for free online.
- mikekchar 11y ago
  Collections are covered by copyright. So even though a recipe is not copyright-able, a book containing recipes is. One of the reasons you will see recipes filled with many paragraphs of filler is that it then becomes a literary work which is covered by copyright. Having said that, I would be surprised if the majority of code in SO is generally copyright-able. If I ask a question, "How do I initialise an object in C++" and the answer is a few lines of code, I do not think that this is a copyright-able work. It is a technique. Even if the code is long enough to be copyright-able, I don't think using the technique would be considered a derived work. Whatever the case, scraping portions of SO would be a copyright violation since it is a collection.
  - LoSboccacc 11y ago
    you still can do that and attribute it somewhere. doubly so with this change, since they require a link and it could be a qr code on the margin (not that I'd buy that book, still..)
wnissen 11y ago
Furthermore, there are numerous court cases that say that, e.g., letters to the editor may be printed in the newspaper, even the absence of any explicit permission. IANAL, but I'd be really surprised if there's any license or attribution required.

vanattab 11y ago

I am under the understanding that if you don't want your code to be used in proprietary projects then you should not post it on SO. I could be wrong though. I also think you could get around this by link to your code hosted elsewhere but I believe this is frowned upon.

ue_ 11y ago
I do not really mind if someone copies my code from SO and uses it in a proprietary project - though I certainly don't want to give that person a legal leg to stand on. I know it will happen inevitably, but saying "This code is licensed under the GNU GPL version 3 or later" will set alarms sounding in any developer paying attention. I don't know if by submitting an answer (containing code) I am transferring the copyright to SO, or if I can stand in the way of this by saying "Copyright <my name>" in the answer.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  You don't mind it but you want it to be completely illegal? Why?
  - ue_ 11y ago
    I don't mind it in the sense that I know it will happen anyway. I object to my code being used in proprietary projects, though with small snippets it's not such a big problem for me. But the problem is big enough for me to want to make sure the code is covered by a license I like. This is just how my priorities are to me.
    - johnlbevan2 11y ago
      Why would you answer a question if you then don't want the person to use the answer you give?
      - jasonlotito 11y ago
        He's not saying that. He's saying that while he understands people will infringe his copyright, he still wants to help. He's not saying you can't use the answer, just that you need to use the answer under a license he chooses.

lorenzhs 11y ago

You could put the code portions of your answer in a gist/pastebin/whatever containing a license and link to that from your answer text. Your answer text would then be CC-BY-SA, but you could license your code under GPLv3 or whatever license you fancy.