Software Engineering Stack Exchange
Software Engineering Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [legal]

OFF TOPIC QUESTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED! Questions about legal matters, including software licensing, are off-topic here. ask a lawyer, or try the law stack exchange site.

OFF TOPIC QUESTIONS ARE NOT SUPPORTED! The law is a minefield and the best advice anyone can give when asked about legal matters is often:

ask a lawyer.

Asking legal questions on Stack Exchange is not a substitute for taking proper local legal advice. What we can do is advise whether asking a lawyer is essential or just highly recommended.

Consider looking at Law.SE as a place to get answers from people who are experts in that domain rather than programmers guessing at it.

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Should you keep a copy of all the code you write?

I know the company you work for owns the code and obviously you will get arrested if you try to sell it. But is it uncommon for developers to keep a personal copy of the code they wrote (for future reference)? Apparently this guy was sent to prison…
superFoo
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What is wrong with the Unlicense?

I have often heard that I should not use the Unlicense because of issues regarding putting things into the public domain. However, I do not understand why this would be an issue for the Unlicense. The Unlicense attempts to put whatever is being…
cgt
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Regulation of the software industry

Every few years someone proposes tighter regulation for the software industry. This IEEE article has been getting some attention lately on the subject. If software engineers who write programs for systems that expose the public to physical or…
Flexo
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What exactly does the condition in the MIT license imply?

To quote the license itself: Copyright (C) [year] [copyright holders] Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software…
jcora
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49
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Is it legal to recreate/opensource a program that you previously coded for another company

At my previous job I created a generic dashboard for automating tasks and it that turned out to be quite useful - and of course my previous employer owns all the code I wrote while I worked there. Now that I'm no longer there, is it legal for me to…
kefeizhou
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49
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10 answers

Legal issues with an NDA that I do not want to sign

I've been given a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to sign by my current employer that I do not want to sign. It is incredibly open ended and I feel that it should have been a condition of my initial employment agreement, which I signed three weeks…
Dylon
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Can an algorithm be patented?

So can an algorithm be patented? I saw this statement which made me think: Everybody would abstain from patenting the improvements of contour dot algorithm for at least several years, say up till 2021. So that the developers of the Outliner…
Shawn Mclean
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3 answers

Copyright statements in source code

Ever since I started programming I've seen a header at the top of most code files indicating some sort of copyright: e.g. /* Copyright (c) 1998 Innotech */ or /* Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Innotech */ Conceptually I get the idea... depending on your…
scunliffe
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Form screenshot for legal proof of clicking one of the checkboxes?

We got a request from one of our customers, and since I've never encountered such a request before, I don't even know where to start looking. Our customer is a network of colleges, and we're building them a site. On that site, among other things,…
Lea Cohen
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Is it a bad idea to sell Android apps in the Android Market under your real name?

I'm just getting started in Android development and am working on a few small "practice" apps. As an example, one is a live wallpaper. The others are similar in terms of development effort. When these apps are done I would like to list them in the…
Joshua Carmody
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6 answers

What are the Pros and Cons of the GPL?

I'm looking at licensing some open source software and am looking at the GPL. What are the pros and cons of using this license?
makerofthings7
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Is it legal for me to contribute to open source software while employed?

I work for a large corporation and I want to keep my skills fresh. I think contributing to an open source project would help, especially if I ever want a job at a startup. I have heard that large companies often own any development employees do…
BennyMcBenBen
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GPL - what is distribution?

An interesting point came up on another thread about alleged misappropriation of a GPL project. In this case the enterprise software was used by some large companies who essentially took the code, changed the name, removed the GPL notices and used…
Martin Beckett
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Do I have to remove my app from app store? (Copyright infringement)

I just got an copyright infringement notice that says my app infringes on the usage policies of the services my app uses. However, this mail does not come directly from the company that runs the website I pull information from. The mail comes from…
Smiden
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I'm a contract developer and I think I'm about to get screwed

I do contract development on the side. You could say that I'm a contract developer? Considering I've only ever had one client I'd say that's not exactly the truth - more like I took a side job and needed some extra cash. It started out as a "rebuild…
rage8885
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