Timeline for The MIT License – Clarity on Using Code on Stack Overflow and Stack Exchange
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
49 events
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| May 23, 2017 at 12:35 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://stackoverflow.com/ with https://stackoverflow.com/
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| Mar 20, 2017 at 10:30 | history | edited | CommunityBot |
replaced http://meta.stackexchange.com/ with https://meta.stackexchange.com/
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| Dec 28, 2015 at 10:56 | comment | added | Raphael | @Shog9 You have still not convinced me that there is a meaningful distinction between code and pseudocode when derivative/inspired work is concerned. It is completely unreasonable to expect readers/users to decide which term and therewith which license applies, imho. (Note that even English text can be pseudocode!) As soon as you have different licenses for different parts of posts, you need to have clear-cut rules as to which applies to what, and I don't see a reasonable rule here. Ergo, the plan as presented is flawed. | |
| Dec 27, 2015 at 18:43 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | That would actually make a pretty good question for Law, @Raphael. To the best of my knowledge, translations are considered derivative works under US copyright law, and thus an attempt to faithfully translate code from one language to another would be as well. This assumes you are actually translating however, and not writing new code inspired by the ideas of the original. Copyright cases are littered with examples of how blurred the line between the two is... See, for example, the ongoing litigation surrounding the song "Blurred Lines". | |
| Dec 27, 2015 at 15:17 | comment | added | Raphael | @Shog9 So if I adapt your C code to work with my Java compiler, I'm not bound by the license you chose for your C code, because I used it as pseudo code? | |
| Dec 24, 2015 at 17:38 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @Iain the same sort of thing happens for the contributor as well. Some of my answers on Stack Overflow, as far as I can tell, present novel solutions to non-trivial problems. Perhaps it's just hubris, but I'd those original solutions to require attribution. And at the very least, I'd like to have some confidence in which parts of an answer will require what amount of attribution. | |
| Dec 24, 2015 at 17:35 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @Iain And when someone comes along and edits your non-code-block code to to be a code-block, the license suddenly changes? I absolutely agree that most of the points I'm bringing up are things that are edge cases, and probably are easy to determine in practice. The problem is that this is supposed to be a legally binding license, and a lack of clarity around the details can be a real problem. Other have brought up issues with their employers allowing (or not allowing) them to incorporate code depending on the license; if it's not clear what license something is under, that's a problem. And | |
| Dec 24, 2015 at 13:52 | comment | added | ian | If you think the line between code and text is blurry, use a code block, then intention is clear. If not, don't, and mention you don't want it touched and it'll stay under the CC licence. If the code already has a licence then people should really be adding a link to the licence in answers anyway if the spirit of being helpful is what they're really doing. Job done. All this other nonsense about finding exceptions to rules should be posted in PhilosophySE under "why did I never read up on the Perfect Solution fallacy?" ;-) | |
| Dec 21, 2015 at 10:18 | comment | added | mirabilos | Another problem of not using the same licence for the entire post is that people would copy the code part without the explanations (to avoid having to add two distinct licences), which will end badly; if the entire post is covered by only one licence, much of the explanation could be merged into a code comment, for example. | |
| Dec 20, 2015 at 3:19 | comment | added | cfr | @Shog9 TeX parses a document token by token. All of it. Is it all machine readable? | |
| Dec 20, 2015 at 0:17 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | Well, is it pseudocode or code then, @Raphael? I mean, the scenario you're describing - taking an algorithm and translating it into compilable code - seems like a standard use for pseudocode, and not one that would normally require a license of any sort. If that translation step isn't necessary... Then it is code. | |
| Dec 19, 2015 at 16:55 | history | edited | Flimzy | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 19, 2015 at 11:28 | comment | added | Raphael | @Shog9 Well, you tell me. That's basically working, copy-pastable code for some languages, modulo some syntax details. I'd say it's pseudo code. So, if you copy-paste that into your project, make minor adjustments so the compiler likes it -- which license applies? | |
| Dec 19, 2015 at 1:09 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | I'd have a real problem considering pseudocode as "code" for this purpose, @Raphael. What does an MIT license even mean if applied to pseudocode? I suppose we'll need a proper definition at some point, and that's best left to the lawyers... But I'd hope something like "machine readable" would be a factor there. | |
| Dec 19, 2015 at 1:05 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | That seems like a pretty big stretch, @rolfl; on Stack Overflow, this is rarely discovered or enforced by the authors themselves - it's usually someone else who discovers the deception and raises an alarm. I've yet to see anyone mollified by the perpetrator claiming that they were allowed to do so by license. This is why I say the concepts are orthogonal - after all, what does it earn you to be legally clear if your posts are downvoted, trashed and deleted? | |
| Dec 18, 2015 at 6:54 | comment | added | 200_success | @BenVoigt has basically pointed out that plagiarism is not a crime. Rather, it is considered a social offense in journalism, academic and literary circles, and that includes Stack Exchange. The punishment is not through the legal system. Rather, it the punishment is ostracism. It's a community-imposed disciplinary measure based on peer opinion. | |
| Dec 18, 2015 at 4:57 | comment | added | Ben Voigt | @rolfl: Take your claim of "It is not plagiarism if you give the person permission to represent the code as their own work" over to academics.SE and see how long it survives. It absolutely is plagiarism to represent someone else's work as your own, and having their permission may free you from having them taking any action against you for the plagiarism, but it does not stop it being plagiarism, and it does not stop other parties from taking action against you. | |
| Dec 18, 2015 at 1:51 | comment | added | James Green | "Where's the line between code and non-code?" For my money that was SQL-92. | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 14:51 | comment | added | Richard Le Mesurier | @Joshua fair enough | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 14:35 | comment | added | tpg2114 |
I was going to leave an answer that was to this effect, but I would take it a step further -- it would be possible for a user to completely subvert the CC-BY-SA intentionally if they chose. If I answered all of my questions in the form of a python function like: def my_answer():\n print "Blah blah blah blah that answers your question", then it is absolutely code but should it be licensed as such? Should I really be allowed to subvert the CC-BY-SA just by wrapping my answer in a function?
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| Dec 17, 2015 at 13:39 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2015 at 13:31 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @Raphael The comment that samthebrand (a mod) left says that "it's on a code user to decide how he/she wants to use what they find here." So it sounds like anyone could come along and say "this is pseudo code, which I'll count as code, so I don't need to provide attribution." Now combine that with the idea that someone mentioned to create an "O'Reilly style cookbook" from code taken without attribution from Stack Overflow, and you've got a situation that I bet lots of contributors won't be happy with. | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 13:26 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2015 at 13:22 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @RichardLeMesurier While I think the lines are getting blurry, I don't think there's any real problem different requirements for posters vs. people using content outside of Stack Overflow. There's no reason Stack Overflow can't impose additional requirements on posters to say "if you use content that you didn't create, you have to provide attribution, even if your license to that content wouldn't otherwise require you to." I think it's weird to have this sort of asymmetry, but I don't think that's it's unworkable or entirely unreasonable. | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 13:17 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 17, 2015 at 9:26 | comment | added | Raphael | To pile on, what about pseudo code, our weapon of choice on Computer Science? Which license applies? Does the answer change when the code compiles in any language (maybe by accident, the author may not even realize that)? (cc @Shog9) | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 9:02 | comment | added | otus | The blurry line is a good point and raises a question: if the formatting changes the license of (parts of) an answer, does that mean that non-authors can no longer change the formatting of a post – since they don't have the copyright to relicense? | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 4:44 | comment | added | Prahlad Yeri | In the words of Picasso, Good artists copy, great artists steal. Does that mean great artists plagiarize? Certainly not. So what if I copied a piece of code from SO (or in fact, anywhere). If I adapted my answer to the needs of the question seeker, that happens to be a good answer. By the same token, a reasonably minded question seeker will only accept those answers that provide him/her a complete solution, not some lines of code that run without errors. So, why does it matter at all if anyone posts copied answers on SO, if those answers aren't going to be appreciated in the first place? | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 3:54 | comment | added | rolfl | @Shog9 Plagiarism is the "wrongful appropriation" and "stealing and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions" and the representation of them as one's own original work. - It is not plagiarism if you give the person permission to represent the code as their own work. If I tell someone "you don't have to say that "rolfl" wrote that code", then it's no longer "wrongful appropriation". You cannot say "there's no need to attribute code", and "you have to attribute code" (and keep a straight face). | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 1:11 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @Samthebrand it's up to the user of the code, not the author? So if anyone can come along and use anything from our posts by calling it code, is there anything left that's still necessarily covered under cc by sa? This seems like it would make the whole site mit licensed... that can't really be the intent, can it? | |
| Dec 17, 2015 at 0:32 | comment | added | samthebrand StaffMod | Just to clarify, we never said code is anything inside a code block. It might be up to a user to decide what's code and what isn't, just like he/she may have to make a judgement about whether something crosses the threshold of originality. Ultimately, always, it's on a code user to decide how he/she wants to use what they find here. | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 21:48 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | Heh... I wondered how long it'd be before someone brought up literate programming. | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 21:30 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 16, 2015 at 21:12 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 16, 2015 at 21:07 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | Here's a related - recent - discussion on MSO just for the hell of it. | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 21:06 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @Shog9 Alright, that clears that up! I'll touch up my post. Thanks for the link! | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 21:04 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | It's spelled out in the help center on every site, @JoshuaTaylor. Which in turn was motivated by this discussion here on meta (and, let's face it, a huge number of flags and complaints over the years). Doesn't matter who you're ripping off or what license their work fell under, if you get caught doing it here you're gonna face the music. | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:59 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:59 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | I'm not taking any firm stance on the actual licensing proposed here. I'm just saying that Stack Overflow is now saying "hey, attribution of code isn't required anymore." I'm saying (and Shog9 seems to agree) that "but if you're using code on Stack Overflow, you still need to provide attribution, even if the license you got the code under doesn't require it." It'd just like to see that spelled out somewhere. Hence, the title, "Attribution should still be required when copying within Stack Overflow". | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:56 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @MadScientist Yes, I understand what plagiarism is. My point is that there's not really a good way to flag it now. It seems strange to say to users that "code you post can be copied and used by others without attribution" but to then punish other users who do exactly that. It's like we're saying "Hey everyone, come use this code that you can find on Stack Overflow. BUT, you'd better not use it on Stack Overflow, because that's against the rules." | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:55 | comment | added | Diminutive Colossus | @MadScientist: So if not providing attribution is pretending that you wrote it (plagiarism), then what does not requiring attribution really do? | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:54 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:52 | comment | added | Mad Scientist | @JoshuaTaylor You're still pretending that some code is your own work when it was actually written by someone else. That is plagiarism, even if the code is in public domain. Shakespeare is entirely in the public domain now, that doesn't mean that people will just accept it if you pretend you wrote Macbeth. | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:50 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @Shog9 But what's the problem in this case? If you lift code from someone else's answer, attribution is no longer required, right? So is there any meaningful way to flag it? Copy and paste code without attribution would be within the license permission, wouldn't it? I agree that it's still just as bad, but what community guideline would it run afoul of? Someone who copies and pastes could easily say "I'm just using code according to the license." | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:44 | comment | added | Shog9 StaffMod | Plagiarism is orthogonal to licensing. Plagiarism is frowned upon on Stack Overflow (and other sites) because it is seen as hostile by the community, not because it violates a license. Nothing being discussed here changes that; if you get caught using someone else's work on Stack Overflow without attribution, you're gonna have a bad time regardless of what license applied to the original. Heck, ripping off someone's public domain code you found on pastebin is just as bad as ripping off someone's licensed code; morally, you're just abusing their generosity for your own selfish gains. | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:36 | history | edited | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:31 | comment | added | Joshua Taylor | @enderland And all you might have to do is wrap it in a code block and comments... | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:26 | comment | added | enderland | This is a great catch. I should quick copy/paste it as another answer here for the upvotes! | |
| Dec 16, 2015 at 20:16 | history | answered | Joshua Taylor | CC BY-SA 3.0 |