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I once got fired over a single line of PHP that they "traced back to" whatever came before stackexchange. This was in the before-times when people didn't rip th
by trhr 3y ago
I once got fired over a single line of PHP that they "traced back to" whatever came before stackexchange. This was in the before-times when people didn't rip things off the internet all day long. Companies were really worried about intellectual property when they needed to reduce headcount.
I don't even remember what the line of code did. I remember it was something absolutely trivial and common though, like trimming the first and last character off a string, then splitting it on a delimiter. They called it "specialized functionality" that "matched character for character with copyrighted code." I called it "overreacting to two good developers both typing the same exact 30 characters in a row."
- klyrs 3y agoThis is why I always put my name and my employer's name in every function/variable name. (heavy sarcasm)
- parpfish 3y agoThat’s nuts. Sometimes if I find a weird hack solution on S/O, I’ll add a comment that permalinks to the thread that fixed it in order to prevent a Chestertons fence problem. Maybe I should stop doing that?
- lionkor 3y agoSO content is public domain, so not usually a problem Edit: I stand corrected, its not public domain.
- shagie 3y agoSO content is NOT public domain. It is CC BY-SA (some version). This requires attribution. > Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. Additionally, the province of code on Stack Overflow is not always clean. It is quite possible to find code on SO that was originally under a GPL license without the necessary "this is GPL code" (and really shouldn't be on SO because of license laundering in the first place).
- lionkor 3y agoOh, okay, sorry - my mistake. I have yet to use SO code anywhere, only been doing this for a few years, so I havent looked into it more.
- parpfish 3y agowhat if it's not code per se but more like "if you see this error, make sure to use this flag/change the value of this parameter"?
- shagie 3y agoIf you copy those exact words, that's copyrighted and under a CC license. If you follow the instructions, you're completely fine since how you do that is up to you. This is covered under the idea–expression dichotomy ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea–expression_distinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idea–expression_distinction ). It is the expression of an idea - not the idea itself - that is copyrightable. I can paint a picture of a red house on a wooded hillside with a snow capped mountain in the background. My painting is copyrighted. You can paint the same thing based on the the same description. I can't copyright the idea of the red house on a wooded hillside with a snow capped mountain in the background (I can copyright the text, but that text likely lacks sufficient originality). Likewise, I can't copyright the idea of how to fix a problem. I can copyright some particular code that fixes that problem. I can copyright the text that describes how to fix the problem - but I can't copyright the idea. Creative Commons, GPL, and the rest of the FOSS licenses all deal with copyrights - not ideas. If you do want to protect an idea, that is in the domain of a patent. "This particular arrangement of latches and levers solves the problem of how to open the back of a truck with minimal force" - that idea of the arrangement of latches and levers is patentable.
- pwdisswordfishc 3y agoWorst of all, Stack Overflow code may also come from a country which isn’t even divided into provinces.
- maxloh 3y agoI once heard that some one liners in SO are not enough to be copyrightable. Is that correct?