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Subject:Re: HUMOR: I Need Help From:Bruce Byfield <bbyfield -at- progeny -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Mon, 19 Feb 2001 09:33:16 -0800
Jim Shaeffer wrote:
> And yet, every software engineer or programmer I know works and learns by
> doing wholesale copies of example code into his or her code. They also base
> their work on established, published algorithms and trusted formulas.
> They don't waste resources "re-inventing the wheel" when there is an
> opportunity for "creative plagiarism."
>
The programmers I work with are all heavily involved in the open
source/free software movements. These movements see the right to
borrow and copy code as part of freedom of expression. Yet none of
these programmers would even think of asking someone else to do
their work for them. If someone tried, they'd be told to do it
themselves. If rewriting free code required that they learn (for
example) Python, the programmers would tell them to go learn it, not
crib off someone else. There's a difference between a free exchange
of information and freeloading.
--
Bruce Byfield 317.833.0313 bbyfield -at- progeny -dot- com
Director of Marketing and Communications,
Progeny Linux Systems
"As through this world I travel, I've met with many men,
Some will rob you with a six gun and some with a fountain pen,
But as through this world you travel, as through this world you
roam,
You won't ever see an outlaw drive a family from its home."
-Woody Guthrie, "The Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd"
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