Legal concern over "borrowed" code

Posted by iandisme on Programmers See other posts from Programmers or by iandisme
Published on 2011-06-27T20:43:12Z Indexed on 2011/06/28 0:30 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 359

Filed under:

legal

|

ethics

|

code-reuse

A company my friend works for (let's call him Me) recently unveiled a new face for their internal "networking" website. This new face looks remarkably like Facebook, and indeed, examination of the source code reveals that it's almost identical: The code, class names, and even the fonts are the same. There is also no indication that Facebook is in any way involved or aware.

I know this is unethical, but is it illegal? I can't find anything concrete about this to help Me decide what to do about it.

EDIT: We're talking front-end code. It does not appear to be linking to Facebook in any way.

© Programmers or respective owner

Related posts about legal

SCALE 8x: Free software legal issues

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
<b>LWN.net:</b> "But in reality the FLOSS ecosystem relies on a complex legal framework in order to run smoothly and to stand up to proprietary software competition: the various software licenses, contribution agreements, copyright and other "intellectual property" law." >>> More
Copyright infringement - inside the legal minefield

as seen on Internet.com - Search for 'Internet.com'
<b>New Zealand Herald:</b> "Several weeks ago the Australian high court ruled in favour of Aussie ISP iiNet in a landmark legal battle where AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) argued that iiNet was as guilty as some of its subscribers of online copyright infringement… >>> More
Signing redistributed files

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
In order to submit a desktop application for the Windows 8 app store, you need to digitally sign any driver or .exe associated with the application. However, the application I was trying to submit contains several files that are redistributions of other companies' software, and some of these are not… >>> More
Is it illegal to rewrite every line of an open source project in a slightly different way, and use it in a closed source project?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
There is some code which is GPL or LGPL that I am considering using for an iPhone project. If I took that code (JavaScript) and rewrote it in a different language for use on the iPhone would that be a legal issue? In theory the process that has happened is that I have gone through each line of the… >>> More
Is it really free to deploy SharpDevelop apps?

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
I'm trying SharpDevelop to develop c# applications. Regardless of the language and the IDE, is it free to deploy applications that use WinForms? I've been developing with MonoDevelop just because it has a designer for Gtk# (client doesn't want to pay more for licences as to use VS...), but it's too… >>> More

Related posts about ethics

The ethics of aggregating other peoples' content

as seen on SQL Blog - Search for 'SQL Blog'
Content theft Most of the recent - what I'll call - "discussions" about content aggregators have revolved around content theft. I'm not going to flip-flop on that topic: when you use someone else's work, you ask first, and if given the okay, you cite it. You can't take my blog article and post it… >>> More
Code of ethics for programmers ?

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
what all are code of ethics for programmers ? >>> More
The programmer's code of ethics [closed]

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
what you think about the programmer's code of ethics ? >>> More
Ethics and Law of modified LGPL code deployment in a commercial software

as seen on Stack Overflow - Search for 'Stack Overflow'
First bit of the question: What are the legal requirements of LGPL code during the deployment of a commercial product? Software package should include LGPL licence file Anything else? Shall we add a line to our "software agreement text" where you need to click next in the installer ? Second bit… >>> More
Signing redistributed files

as seen on Programmers - Search for 'Programmers'
In order to submit a desktop application for the Windows 8 app store, you need to digitally sign any driver or .exe associated with the application. However, the application I was trying to submit contains several files that are redistributions of other companies' software, and some of these are not… >>> More