StackOverflow2013

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POAre licenses relevant for small code snippets?
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copied!<p>When I'm about to write a short algorithm, I first check in the base class library I'm using whether the algorithm is implemented in it. If not, I often do a quick google search to see if someone has done it before (which is the case, 19 times out of 20). </p> <p>Most of the time, I find the exact code I need. Sometimes it's clear what license applies to the source code, sometimes not. It may be GPL, LGPL, BSD or whatever. Sometimes people have posted a code snippet on some random forum which solves my problem.</p> <p>It's clear to me that I can't reuse the code (copy/paste it into my code) without caring about the license if the code is in some way substantial. What is not clear to me is whether I can copy a code snippet containing 5 lines or so without doing a license violation.</p> <p>Can I copy/paste a 5-line code snippet without caring about the license? What about one-liner? What about 10 lines? Where do I draw the line (no pun intended)?</p> <p>My second problem is that if I have found a 10-line code snippet which does exactly what I need, but feel that I cannot copy it because it's GPL-licensed and my software isn't, I have already memorized how to implement it so when I go around implementing the same functionality, my code is almost identical to the GPL licensed code I saw a few minutes ago. (In other words, the code was copied to my brain and my brain after that copied it into my source code).</p> <p><strong>Edit</strong>: I'm located in Sweden. It makes me even more confused that this is country-dependent. What if I re-use a piece of code (in a manner which is legal where I live) and I sell this source code to a company in a country where the re-use of code would be illegal.</p>

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