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0 pointsThereIsNoWorry4y ago0 comments

Code plagiarization is not a thing by all practical purposes (it's even almost impossible to go to court with that for very obvious reasons). And that's good. Because with that insane lockdown of "Intellectual Property" nothing would ever get done. So, think what you want.

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4 comments · 2 top-level

teakettle424y ago· 2 in thread

> Code plagiarization is not a thing by all practical purposes

Of course it is. Plagiarism is “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.”

It’s unethical and it will get you fired at any reputable company.

ThereIsNoWorryOP4y ago

Ok, then there doesn't exist a single reputable company with a tech division and we're all unethical. Have a nice unethical day.

teakettle424y ago

> Ok, then there doesn't exist a single reputable company with a tech division and we're all unethical. Have a nice unethical day.

I’m deeply disturbed that you think this form of plagiarism is universal — I can assure you that is not the case.

I work at a FANG currently, and plagiarism is absolutely not tolerated.

In fact, plagiarism has been considered a fireable offense at every other company I’ve worked at over my 25 year long career, and prior to that, considered a serious form of academic misconduct in school.

It’s clearly unethical and I’ve never plagiarized in my life.

I’ve only run into one instance of someone else plagiarizing code in my career, and that individual was fired.

3 more replies

lin834y ago

I don't think that's true and, if it was, it would be the death knell for open source.

Code Plagiarism is taken very seriously by every company I have worked with. Multiple companies have been sued for violating the GPL. The SFC is currently fighting Vizio in court for example. While not commonplace, to say it's "almost impossible" is a stretch. Every large company complies with code copyright obligations for a reason. My company publishes changes to GCC and a dozen other GPL projects. Entire products like Protocode and BlackDuck exist to ensure code compliance. Even small code snippets are flagged.

Over the past few years the source code for Windows, SQL server, Bing and Cortana have all been leaked. If someone built a product using that code, how long do you think it would take Microsoft to sue? CoPilot is one rule for mega-corps and another for everyone else.

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