Can post a code but afraid of plagiarism

[Rustom Mody]

On Wednesday, January 22, 2014 6:21:37 AM UTC+5:30, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
> On Mon, 20 Jan 2014 19:17:35 +1100, Ben Finney wrote:

> > indar kumar writes:
> >> Hint would have been enough but I was strictly discouraged.
> > You asked for private help, specifically to subvert the rules against
> > plagiarism you're subject to.
> > So no, I don't believe this modification of your request to be sincere.
> > You asked for help cheating, and you were refused. Please take a hint,
> > and do your assignment under the terms your teacher has set.

> That is the harshest, least "good faith" interpretation of the OP's post 
> I have ever read. It doesn't look to me like that attitude is intended to 
> be welcoming to students who are trying to walk the narrow tightrope of 
> being part of a community of programmers who value sharing and 
> collaboration while avoiding running foul of overly strict academic rules 
> about so-called plagiarism.

I was working in a large sw-development company some years ago.
One day unexpectedly I found I could not download any more the FOSS sw
I regularly use.  What happened??

Evidently a programmer had copied GPL code off the net, passed it off
as his own, it had gone past the local company'a managers and been
detected by the off-shore client-company.  Evidently a dose of GPLd
code is as salutary for the health of commercial sw companies as a
polonium capsule is for humans.  Hence the chaos.

So treating Ben's strictures as *purely* academic is at least as harsh
as the strictures themselves

IOW plagiarism is not about some kind of morality but about following
some rules -- which are usually quite arbitrary.

Heck even different free licenses quarrel about what constitutes right
and wrong.  And as a consequence of all this, courses and entire
degrees in IP are becoming fashionable