Tagged Questions

1
vote
1answer
248 views

Is it legal and ethical to reverse engineer software to port it to another system?

I love gaming, I love games that allow modding and I love linux. But the fact that most games right now are targeted for windows (consoles aside), most mods and modding tools are also targeted for ...
17
votes
6answers
2k views

Is it okay to rollback code if your client refuses to pay you? [closed]

A friend of mine did some contracting work to add localization support to an existing mobile app. He was not contracted to add any other features or fix any already existing bugs. He has finished his ...
0
votes
1answer
183 views

Extracting main article from webpage/feed. Is it legal/ethical?

There are some applications like Readability and Pocket, which are letting users to read the main content of web pages, in a clean interface or such. But the articles should be bookmarked from another ...
-2
votes
1answer
63 views

May I use full-texted feed for my News Reader app? [closed]

I'm creating a news reader app. (Users will choose sources, but not the exact feed addresses. for example, they can choose Gizmodo but they will not see the exact url of Gizmodo's feed) Some of ...
1
vote
2answers
249 views

Can I use code in my own projects that I have written for someone else? [closed]

In the past I did a freelancing project for someone where I wrote a couple of image filters. Nothing fancy, and a very very low cost project for them. I was wondering, if I wish to use these in a ...
7
votes
4answers
442 views

Is there a difference between “self-plagiarizing” in programming vs doing so as a writer?

I read this Gawker article about how a writer reused some of his older material for new assignments for different magazines. Is there any similar ethical (societal?) dilemma when doing the same ...
10
votes
6answers
434 views

Turning in code you developed in your company as homework assignments

I'm currently running a start-up with a buddy and I noticed that some of my university assignments could be finished by simply copying some code from some of the programs we've developed. Are there ...
2
votes
7answers
427 views

Is it legal/ethical to post production code? [closed]

This may sound silly or obvious but this is my case; I work at a company that recently implemented SAP and I was the responsible to generate/migrate the master data of the company which let me learn a ...
5
votes
4answers
573 views

Is it legal or ethical for me to use my previous employer's code in a new project?

I participated and wrote a large amount of code in a project which my current company outsourcing to my former company last year. After that I left my former company and recently join in my current ...
11
votes
9answers
1k views

Legality/Ethics of crawling a site to basically copy its database? [closed]

A potential freelance client wants a copy of all the phone numbers in an entire country of several million people in CSV format for their telemarketing system. They have sent me a link to an online ...
0
votes
1answer
160 views

How to give life to my idea which belong to my company?

I wonder, what options do I have in the following situation. In the course of the several projects I realised the need in some auxilary software product (related to testing of the main products). I ...
1
vote
1answer
248 views

Legal concern over “borrowed” code

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 ...
75
votes
13answers
6k views

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?

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 ...
4
votes
6answers
415 views

Is it legal/ethical to collect and release some types of anonymous usage data without consent?

The type of data I'm hoping to collect is a little specific, and unfortunately I'm under NDA and the data is a core part of the business plan so I'm not at liberty to post it online. I've come up with ...
5
votes
3answers
281 views

Ethics, Clients, and legal repercussions

I'm asking this after reading a SO question where the OP asked for help decoding obfuscated code, which looks like it belongs to a closed-source company. The OP's client is saying "I don't know the ...