CC-by-SA vs MIT - The 2016 battle

Question

Stack Exchange is announcing the change from CC-BY-SA 3.0 to MIT License and the chaos has emerged.

After a few hours of research, I've concluded that I've been breaking the law (license) since the day I started using Stackoverflow. I've probably copied more than 1 thousand lines of code from Stack Overflow and I've never attributed it to anyone nor I released my software under the same license.

On that matter, how do you even attribute the credit for a snippet of source code? Should my code be like:

/**
 * replace first element of $bar with $baz.
 */
function foo(array $bar, $baz){
    /**
     * @author aefxx
     * @link http://stackoverflow.com/a/18577136/1014588
     * @modified Marco Aurélio Deleu
     */
    reset($bar);    
    $key = key($bar);
    unset($bar[$key]);

    /**
     *
     * @author rockacola
     * @edit Toby Allen
     * @link http://stackoverflow.com/a/1739717/1014588
     * @modified Marco Aurélio Deleu
     */
     array_unshift($bar , $baz);
    /**********************************************/

    return $bar;
}

Because I gotta say, this gives me more trouble than solution. It would be easier to just ban Stack Overflow from my Google Searches.

This discussion goes back to 2008 and on top of it all, I have to check the user's profile to make sure which license I'm allowed to use?

Bottom line is that I'd like to be able to post snippets of my codes in questions, answers, code reviews and whatever and be able to learn/copy/change/profit from other questions, answers, code reviews and whatevers without having to worry about legal consequences. I want Stack Overflow to be a place where I get help and give help, not a place to cause me legal consequences.

Is this achievable?

Answer 1

I think that there is a piece missing. Not every line of code on Stack Overflow needs attribution, a year ago, a week ago, yesterday, or next year. In copyright, there is something called the threshold of originality. In the United States, to be eligibility for copyright requires that the work being copyrighted required some minimal degree of creativity to make.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to actually define what "minimal degree of creativity" actually means. Although you can probably take a well educated guess. Looking through my answers that include code, I haven't found any on Stack Overflow that actually required creative effort to put together.

Let's assume that all of the code that you copied was like mine and didn't meet the threshold of originality and couldn't be copyrighted. That means that you can't put a license on the code. The requirement for attribution comes from the license. So that little piece of code? Nope, no need to provide attribution.

All of that said, it is a good idea if you start providing attribution, even when it's not legally required. But because there's no license to specify how to attribute the code to the owner, you can attribute in the way that you feel is appropriate.

I would exercise a lot more caution on large code blocks, especially when you get to functional units - functions and methods, classes, and similar. The code posted in questions and answers on Code Review and Programming Puzzles & Code Golf are probably more problematic than most of the code on Stack Overflow. Likewise, the entire shell scripts posted on sites like Ask Different or Unix & Linux may also be covered under copyright. That's when you may run into issues, and why revisiting the license terms is very important.

Answer 2

All code you have copied from Stack Overflow in the past already required attribution. The legal page says you need to link to the original post and the authors profile, both on the Stack Exchange domain (so not a scraper).

The new license is giving you more freedom since it is allowed to copy code without attribution.

The MIT announcement page says:

Contributors agree to give code users permission to ignore the MIT License’s notice preservation requirement, as long as users give reasonable attribution upon request of the copyright holder (or Stack Exchange on behalf of the contributor).

So no attribution required as long as the author or Stack Exchange doesn't ask you to.

The above is outdated. The new proposal says attribution is required. Now that proposal is put on hold. Clearly, they are not sure what it will be. We have to wait until the final document is out.

It also recommends this:

Add a comment to your code that links back to the post where you found it

That is just a single line of comment, which is a lot less than your post has. That seems to be enough according to the license announcement.

And that doesn't mean you have to attribute every use of a framework function, like in your sample. If you use the general idea behind an answer, like the use of a framework function like array_unshift, there is no need to attribute that since you didn't actually copy the code block.

Answer 3

On that matter, how do you even attribute the credit for a snippet of source code?

Assumptions: The code from the answer is copyrighted (if it’s not, you don’t have to attribute), and licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. So it’s case {3} from my other answer.

Your attribution example is missing an important element: You have to note how the original work is licensed. (SE’s “Attribution Required” page misses to list this requirement, but it’s nevertheless legally required.)

A simple attribution could look like this:

/**
 * @author unor
 * @link https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/272269/
 * @license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
 */

If you modified the code (and if this modification resulted in an Adaptation), you have to indicate that changes were made (and optionally, which):

/**
 * @author unor
 * @link https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/272269/
 * @license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
 * @modification The original code has been modified.
 */

And yes, your work has to be licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0, too. In case of an Adaptation, you could license it under a compatible license in addition (e.g., CC BY-SA 4.0 and GPLv3).

Answer 4

I'd like to be able to post snippets of my codes in questions, answers, code reviews and whatever and be able to learn/copy/change/profit from other questions, answers, code reviews and whatevers without having to worry about legal consequences. I want Stackoverflow to be a place where I get help and I can help, not a place to cause me legal consequences. Is this achievable?

Yes.

There are two separate issues: Contributing your code to Stack Overflow, and taking code from Stack Overflow.

Contributing

As long as you solely own the copyright for the code, and you accept that by contributing it you are agreeing to license it to Stack Overflow so they can license it to their users, then you can go ahead and contribute your code verbatim.

As long as you have been given permission by the copyright holder you can do the same. This might be the case where you have code that answers a question inside existing code who you've already assigned the rights to your employer or client. They need to give permission, and once you've received that you're fine.

If neither are true, but you know the answer, just don't cut and paste from existing code bases. Start writing the answer, write the code with the caveat, if needed, that you haven't tested it, or simply refer to the methods, classes, generic algorithm name they need to look up in documentation, and link to those on other sites. There's no need to copy from your existing code to answer most questions. Most code answers are short enough, anyway, that you can write something altogether new.

This only covers code snippet copyright and licensing, though. If there's a trade secret, or client/company specific knowledge that would help the asker, you might want to make sure that you own the idea and haven't signed it away before giving that away - it may not be code, but it may still be covered by agreements and contracts you've made with others.

Accepting

It really doesn't matter what license Stack Overflow adopts. I recommend you never copy code as-is from the site. Instead, learn a little about clean room reverse engineering and follow those tenets as closely as you believe necessary to separate your output from your learning.

A simple process might be the following:

1. Develop per your normal methods, using official documentation and other relevant resources which you won't be tempted to use cut-n-paste on.
2. Write down questions and problems you have if they don't prevent you from proceeding. Make notes in text and code where these problems exist so you can easily revisit them later. Code for as long as you can.
3. When you can't proceed any further, shut down your development environment and open your learning resources where you might be tempted to cut-n-paste from, along with your text notes.
4. Research your questions. Write the notes and answers needed in your text notes. Do not cut-n-paste. Particularly valuable are references to classes and methods you might need, and short descriptions and sketches of algorithms. Don't write code at this point - it's too easy to write what you're seeing, which isn't much different legally from cutting and pasting. Use a fake human readable code if you need to take step by step notes about a complex algorithm. Do not go back to your development environment if you have questions, make a note and answer it later.
5. Close your research windows. Restart your development environment. Open the resources you need from the notes that point to official sources of documentation and other resources that are "safe" to use while developing. Start writing code again.

This isn't a perfect clean room reverse engineering, you can go much more deeply down this, but with proper notes you may be better protected from possible legal issues. You will not need to perform any attribution except since you never copied anything, but you might want to keep links in your notes should you have to refer to them later.

If you properly organize your notes then they will act as excellent documentation for later maintainers as well as legal evidence of a valid clean room reverse engineering method.