> the recent discussion, Nick Cox objected when it appeared his own
> codes were being abused (by me). Although that was not the case, Nick
In case anyone wants to formalize this notion of intellecutal property
standards:
Duplicating someone's program for duplication's sake is generally
frowned upon, and is best avoided. If someone needs to borrow
extensive sections of codes for legitimate reasons, then it should be
acknowledged in the help file to be distributed along with the
resulting program. Both the author and the source program should be
mentioned by name in the help file. Within the program the borrowed
codes should be commented upon. If the borrowing is quite extensive,
then attempts should be made to contact the writer of the source.
Among other things, this practice prevents abusive situations where
someone takes someone's else codes or programs and republishes them
under their own name. In academia such work would be considered a
plagiarized work. Just how much can be taken without the need to cite
is a judgement call, but at certain point it becomes rather obvious
when the acknowledgement must be made. This is esecially the case when
the duplicator is being confused with the originator. Consistently
failing to give proper attribution is almost guaranteed to cause
problems later on, especially when the original writer is still around
and active.
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