Code ripping..

[Shockwave]

I was looking on the internet earlier on today and I came accross some programs, you know how it is, you see your routine used and immediately you recognise it as your own. I've seen this done before many times in the past, not just with my own stuff.

I even do it myself all the time using frameworks and module players that are written by other people, I do it because I don't have the time or even the understanding of how to make some of them myself. I always try and give credit, maybe there have been one or two times that I forgot to do it, but I'd never do it on purpose.

The code that caused me to think was a freebasic framework I released a long time ago, it contained a few simple things to draw polygons, lines, text, beziers etc.

I was sure that I saw my line routine used in something so I dissassembled it and compared to a dissasembly of my own and it was virtually identical.

Then I started to search further and found some of my actual source code had been posted somewhere but the comments I had left in the source had been taken out, and the code had even been unoptimised! (a colour conversion had been moved inside a loop instead of outside it which meant an extra 60+ calculations each time the function was called, also the function name had been altered slightly for some reason (one letter had been dropped off it!)... Apart from that though it was an identical copy of my function.

I started to think about this..

After all I had released this library for people to use freely, then there was no need to disguise the fact that it came from my lib.

I was happy for it to be used / adapted.

Having said that, I have never taken a framework and deliberately changed the indentation and comments and passed it off as my own.

So that is the connundrum, I don't know whether I should be happy that this person is learning to code, or if I should be annoyed that it seems to have been ripped with no credit, flattered that someone plagiarised it or sad for the person who took it and wanted to pass it off as his own because he didn't know how to do it himself.

This must go on a lot here, we have a lot of generous people who post things and make them freely available to everyone, out of 55,000 posts, I wonder how many of them contain code that has been used somewhere else without the author ever finding out.

That's the big shame in it I think because the potential audience would respect these people more if they acknowledged where the code came from.

It makes me wonder if we should have a mandatory code here to say "credit the author" or not.

Of course, the protocol of the demo scene was always to provide credit for what you took, those who didn't do so were properly classed as lamers, so what I am asking is that since this site contains code snippets from a lot of you, how would you feel if the guidelines of this forum were ammended to take the ethics of the demo scene into account and require credit if code snippets are used?

I never thought about it until now, and it has always been up to the individual author, but since I saw my code pointlessly modified without credit in this way today, perhaps it's time we talked about it... Not to protect our work, but to uphold the protocol of the demoscene that we all love.

Seeing what is going on here warms my heart, we have people who are working really hard on tutorials, ready for the next generation of people who will come along and code demos. We can't physically protect our work, I would never want that anyway, but we should think about this issue perhaps and ammend the guidelines to allow us to point out when someone rips off our work without credit.

Here is an example of what we need to guard against..

http://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=26686&howmanycomments=-1

As it was released on Pouet, after the rip was pointed out, sceners dealt with it accordingly.

I haven't decided what approach I want to take yet, it has to be up to everyone I'll leave it open for discussion and voting.

[benny!]

Yah, that's a nasty thing. I like the way the scene handled it.
Stealing code once - and you would never do it again - because
you will never or hardly lose the reputation of a lamer/code stealer.

With the internet and a wider looser scene, this becomes harder
nowadays. Still, I somehow liked those public announcements. I
have seen that on some other cases, too - where e.g. a musician
(cannot remember the name) steals the melody of a scene-music
track.

But as you said - it must be very obvious that a guy stole your code
and simply re-release it without major changes and of course you
must make it very clear in your documentation that crediting is mandotory.

Maybe adding a license like CC might also help.

Anyway, good topic - worth talking about!

[Shockwave]

have seen that on some other cases, too - where e.g. a musician
(cannot remember the name) steals the melody of a scene-music
track.

That has actually happened to me!

I released a small intro for S!P with two songs inside it, one was by Ampli, the other was by AM/FM (or so I thought), after time it was exposed that he stole the melody from another scene musician (Michu).
I of course apologised to Michu personally about it and he was cool, he even worked with me on another project.
AM/FM was ostracised by the rest of the group and after a brief stint in trolling members of Ravebusters on Pouet, he dissapeared up his own asshole.

[hellfire]

Back in the days when I got my first 386 I intensively studied this little program by Tim Clarke which taught me most concepts of 32bit programming.
Consequently I should mention him in every program I write today. But I don't.
I don't mention Nehe with every call to glVertex, either.
Still both were very helpful to learn new things and it's absolutely natural to look at other people's work to get into things.
So when I give away source-code I intend it ot be used, changed, adapted or completely rewritten.
I don't really care to get credited but it's nice to see what people did with my stuff (eg here).

On the other hand if someone's just taking my code and claims it his own, he's just lame and probably always will be.
Actually this is a common phenomena in internet-communities. One can impress others without having any abilities and without investing work.
But that's again something I really don't care about.

[slinks]

Back on the yabasic forums I had a half-working RPG based off of your RPG engine shockie, but as it was released on the forums and everybody knew about it, I figure that's still cool.

Other than that, all my code is my own work. On the one hand, that's why it always looks so incredibly low-quality, but on the other, nobody wil ever steal the code, because no-one would ever want to be associated with it XD

[benny!]

Yup. Like Hellfire said - crediting everything source where you learned/used code snippet
from makes no sense. But concerning the case of real code ripping in the sense of
copying huge parts of it 1:1 and just releasing it under your own name sucks big times.

Definately worth publically doing some pamphlets on them ;-)

[Jim]

Be proud that someone thought to rip off your stuff.
If your stuff was rubbish they wouldn't have bothered.

It's hard to see someone take credit for your stuff, but it happens all the time.  Very hard.

Perhaps there is some Karma to pay back for the stuff that you've learned from?  Infinite Karma for sharing, minus a little bit for the stuff you take back.

Jim

[Shockwave]

It's very interesting indeed to read everyone's thoughts on this matter.

Maybe if this behaviour was allowed to change the rules of the place it would somehow tarnish this community.

[Moroboshisan]

Yup. Like Hellfire said - crediting everything source where you learned/used code snippet
from makes no sense. But concerning the case of real code ripping in the sense of
copying huge parts of it 1:1 and just releasing it under your own name sucks big times.

Definately worth publically doing some pamphlets on them ;-)

Actually I think that giving proper credits could be, sometimes, really difficult... BTW code-ripping is so lame that such a lamer could be easily spotted by just a few question... so ... why bother? Leave him/her alone and they will kill him/herself with him/her hands!
I did some ripping back in the days ... but never got anything released, I didn't feel too much proud of myself so I decided to delete that stuff or never spread it (at least!!!)... that's why you won't find so much in my CSDb group profile...
I think anonymity would be far too much better than popular lamness...
Obviously someone doesn't think about code-ripping the same way... they feel so smart, you know...

Definately I won't bother... unless that won't create some kind of real damage... in such cases I think that those lamers deserves to be sued to physical extintion!... maybe too much?

Spot them laughing at them... I know, it's a pity...

Just my humble and really personal point of view... of course...

[zawran]

I don't think its a big problem, at least not something that happens often enough to warrant having to make up new rules for it. Everyone should more or less know that taking someone elses code, without modification, and calling it your own just isn't they right way to go about things. But I doubt that a witchhunt would do much difference because those that work that way will continue to do so, they will just find other places to hang out if they are called out.

The forum is one of the nicer places to be, so I don't feel that we should change that by making more rules, which in turn might keep people from wanting to sign up.

Personally I have come to the mindset that all code I will be posting will be public domain, and can be used with or without credit. When I am done with some code, I am done with it, and anyone can use it as they please. Not that my code is mindblowing to begin with, so its not a huge concern of mine these days anyways Its probably also more of a problem with assembly and c++ than with basic language variants I would think.

Well just my 2c thoughts on the subject.

[Shockwave]

I can't think of anything in Zawrans post that I disagree with actually.
Moroboshisan makes some good points too, except maybe physically killing code rippers, that might be illegal

[Jim]

Hulk Smash!

Jim

[Moroboshisan]

... except maybe physically killing code rippers, that might be illegal

... depends ...

[Shockwave]

The point that is not immediately obvious is that someone may pass off your work as their own, but of course, when they are busy slapping it on the internet and showing their friends what they made, they know inside that they took it from somewhere else, they probably feel bad inside that they are unable to do it themselves for whatever reason.

[Moroboshisan]

Unless you're not protecting your code in some way or another there could be someone... somewhere... who will cut'n'paste (or rip-off) your code...

When I wrote "those lamers deserves to be sued to physical extintion!" didn't really mean to kill'em... I think that if you're developing something really powerful there is many ways to sue those rippers...

If you can claim with no doubt that something were stolen from you there is little chances (close to zero... IMHO) that there is any way for the ripper to document the inner intimate secrets of YOUR work...

Actually the REAL point is being able to SPOT the ripper! The Net is huge (... maybe not that much!).... 

You can close all your sources and distribute exe only... but.... No sources = No Learning

Code rippers are just one of the worst side effect... maybe we can turn back to the closed circle BBS's were you can gain access by just knowing someone that grants for you...

Sounds like involution... :/

[TinDragon]

While I might not be one of the most active members of the community it is IMHO one of the best of its type that I have come across and in general everyone is helpful and shares there knowledge and in some cases there code freely for others to learn from. I might not be one of the biggest code sharing people on the forums, but when I do share code it is so others can use it to learn from or adapt to there own projects, if they just copy and paste and claim it as there own then I do find that anoying and to be honest it is why I am reluctant at times to share source code as I have seen it happen before on various forums.

The thing is if we dont share code samples, snippets and at times full source code, then it can make it much harder to explain things to people and help them to learn, we all probably have learnt from others code how to do certain things, be it as simple as how to use variables to effects, but people willing to learn tend to take that code and fiddle with it, adjust it and learn how it works and why it works, sometimes changing it into something new, few would use it as is and claim it as there own. These are the kind of people this forum and community was made for and I dont think a change in the rules would make much of an impact on those who would just rip code and claim it as there own to be honest, all it might do as Zawran said is put off people from joining if they feel there's to many rules.

[slinks]

except maybe physically killing code rippers, that might be illegal

Only in 9 out of ten countries

[Shockwave]

Nice to see you again Jon, it's nice to have your thoughts on this, thank you.

[Moroboshisan]

... all it might do as Zawran said is put off people from joining if they feel there's to many rules.

feeling the same...

[Shockwave]

We are pretty lenient on rules here I think.

The only one we really enforce with any real zeal are "be nice to new guys", and in fairness we never really have to mention that to anyone.