If I solve a problem but it turns out later I had read a solution to this problem somewhere and inadvertently copied it. Is it my code?
If I use a Jetbrains provided built in template for a function and just fill in the variables, is it my code?
What if I just accept it as is, still my code?
If I copy a solution verbatim from Stack Overflow or a book, is it my code?
If I iplement a well known algorithm, is it my code if it looks exactly the same as a billion other implementations of the same thing? Can you tell whether I wrote it or just copied someone elses code?
What if Intellisense autocompletes a full function, is it my code?
What if the autocomplete is powered by a LLM, is it my code?
Can anything except a full clean-room implementation on a computer with no internet access be “my code”?
Please tell me, as you seem to have this thing nailed down. I work with this stuff every day and I’m mostly in the dark about where the line between “my code” and “too much autogenerated, no copyright or even copyright ifringement” goes.
… but it turns out later I had read a solution to this problem somewhere and inadvertently copied it.
Plagiarism covers this.
If I use a Jetbrains provided built in template …
Are you claiming you wrote the template? I think plagiarism might cover that.
What if I just accept it as is, still my code?
Absolutely not.
If I copy a solution verbatim from Stack Overflow or a book,
If you… saw a solution somewhere. And then you copied it letter for letter. And then you told people, “this is mine, I wrote this,” … is that plagiarism?
This is for sure a difficult one, super hard, but I will give you a chance to think about it. It’s good to consider all the possibilities.
I’m going to be a little less mean considering some things I’ve seen you say elsewhere.
What I’m talking about here is attribution. Colleges have their own system, I don’t believe that it’s law, for identifying and dealing with plagiarism, and that’s because where an idea came from is very important to academia. Something that trips a lot of people up because they tend to think of plagiarism as thought-stealing from other people: you can be found to have plagiarized your own work from years prior. You have to call out where your information comes from.
Software, even though chunks of code are copywrightable, as a culture, does not care about this nearly as much. Are you stealing if you borrow something from stack overflow? In a way, yeah, kinda. But nobody cares. Lawyers do care about the selected licenses on libraries and github pages, though.
But this is where talking exclusively about copywright gets in the way: if a coworker of mine borrowed a solution from a free-as-in-libre github repository, that would be fine. And the law wouldn’t care. But if they then said, “I wrote this,” maybe because they’re anxious about proving to their manager that they’re worth keeping around, I would think that was really fucking weird of them.
Attribution is not strictly a legal concept. It may or may not be possible to get my coworker there in legal trouble, but that’s really besides the point, I think they’re being anti-social. The dishonesty about where those ideas came from make me nervous about continuing to associate with them at all.
I have zero special interest in AI, what pisses me off are weird vague rules.
If all copied code ever is plagiarism and must be reported, the whole world would grind to a halt as we need to lawyer up and rewrite everything with verified clean room protocols.
There are finite ways to solve problems with code, how can anyone prove a piece of code is actually written by them and not AI generated or copied from SO or a blog if they all look the same? There is no audit trail, nobody recorded their coding sessions with cryptographic signatures to prevent tampering.
What I’m getting at here is the complete impossibility of proving a piece of code is man-made and not plagiarised, copied or otherwise generated.
And if it’s impossible to prove something is man-made without a doubt, why have vague rules against code that is not?
There are finite ways to solve problems with code, how can anyone prove a piece of code is actually written by them …
You and I are going to end up reinventing the US patent system, and while cool, I just do not have time for it. I have way too many autumn leaves to blow into my neighbor’s yard.
But what is “my code”?
If I solve a problem but it turns out later I had read a solution to this problem somewhere and inadvertently copied it. Is it my code?
If I use a Jetbrains provided built in template for a function and just fill in the variables, is it my code?
What if I just accept it as is, still my code?
If I copy a solution verbatim from Stack Overflow or a book, is it my code?
If I iplement a well known algorithm, is it my code if it looks exactly the same as a billion other implementations of the same thing? Can you tell whether I wrote it or just copied someone elses code?
What if Intellisense autocompletes a full function, is it my code?
What if the autocomplete is powered by a LLM, is it my code?
Can anything except a full clean-room implementation on a computer with no internet access be “my code”?
Please tell me, as you seem to have this thing nailed down. I work with this stuff every day and I’m mostly in the dark about where the line between “my code” and “too much autogenerated, no copyright or even copyright ifringement” goes.
Plagiarism covers this.
Are you claiming you wrote the template? I think plagiarism might cover that.
Absolutely not.
If you… saw a solution somewhere. And then you copied it letter for letter. And then you told people, “this is mine, I wrote this,” … is that plagiarism?
This is for sure a difficult one, super hard, but I will give you a chance to think about it. It’s good to consider all the possibilities.
So it’s plagiarism all the way down? All software ever is uncopyrightable?
I’m going to be a little less mean considering some things I’ve seen you say elsewhere.
What I’m talking about here is attribution. Colleges have their own system, I don’t believe that it’s law, for identifying and dealing with plagiarism, and that’s because where an idea came from is very important to academia. Something that trips a lot of people up because they tend to think of plagiarism as thought-stealing from other people: you can be found to have plagiarized your own work from years prior. You have to call out where your information comes from.
Software, even though chunks of code are copywrightable, as a culture, does not care about this nearly as much. Are you stealing if you borrow something from stack overflow? In a way, yeah, kinda. But nobody cares. Lawyers do care about the selected licenses on libraries and github pages, though.
But this is where talking exclusively about copywright gets in the way: if a coworker of mine borrowed a solution from a free-as-in-libre github repository, that would be fine. And the law wouldn’t care. But if they then said, “I wrote this,” maybe because they’re anxious about proving to their manager that they’re worth keeping around, I would think that was really fucking weird of them.
Attribution is not strictly a legal concept. It may or may not be possible to get my coworker there in legal trouble, but that’s really besides the point, I think they’re being anti-social. The dishonesty about where those ideas came from make me nervous about continuing to associate with them at all.
So if you ever copied an answer from Stack Overflow, you always put full attribution to that segment of code giving full credit to whoever wrote it?
I’m going to go back to being mean to you if you’re just going to rules-lawyer carve a path toward your AI special interest.
Secondly, I don’t copy answers from Stack Overflow. I have skill. It’s beneath me.
I have zero special interest in AI, what pisses me off are weird vague rules.
If all copied code ever is plagiarism and must be reported, the whole world would grind to a halt as we need to lawyer up and rewrite everything with verified clean room protocols.
There are finite ways to solve problems with code, how can anyone prove a piece of code is actually written by them and not AI generated or copied from SO or a blog if they all look the same? There is no audit trail, nobody recorded their coding sessions with cryptographic signatures to prevent tampering.
What I’m getting at here is the complete impossibility of proving a piece of code is man-made and not plagiarised, copied or otherwise generated.
And if it’s impossible to prove something is man-made without a doubt, why have vague rules against code that is not?
C’mon, man. Don’t lie.
You and I are going to end up reinventing the US patent system, and while cool, I just do not have time for it. I have way too many autumn leaves to blow into my neighbor’s yard.