• BillionaireStew@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Much of open-source development relies on the honor system. There is likewise no way to tell, just by examining code, that it was not plagiarized.

    Honor that needs to be enforced is not honor. It is something less.

    • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      It relies on legality, not honor. E.G. with GPL, or code with a proprietary license. It’s the threat of losing their job, getting sued or whatever that discourages plagarism.

      • BillionaireStew@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        The other practical side of this is enforceability.

        There is likewise no way to tell, just by examining code, that it was not plagiarized.

        Non-point elements removed to help you focus.

        • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Ah I get your point now. Yes, ultimately both policies would rely on honor.

          I’d argue plagiarism is different, though. If a codebase stipulates ‘don’t plagiarize,’ that’s… common morality. Not many contributors are going to argue ‘well, I want to plagiarize.’ They wouldn’t advertise it in any project they contribute to.

          Dictating what tooling to use is different. That’s going to fall under ‘personal choice’ for more contributors. And they may feel compelled to hide tool use for that particular project, when they would otherwise show its use publicly in others.

          In other words, forbidding tools like, projects runnings be telling contributors to forgo something they’re used to using public. That’s going to trigger more lack-of-disclosure and rule-breaking from devs that otherwise wouldn’t do that.