Can anybody help !!

**Mostafa_mech** · 09-30-2010, 10:08 PM

Hello Everyone

I am not sure if I am posting in the right place or not, but anyway the following is my problem.

I am totally confused with understanding the copyrights concept generally, and for published software codes specially. Usually I read tutorials from Java main site or from other sites, too, and they put on their sites pieces of code or a full code to make the reader try it and understand it. but I find sometimes in the very beginning of the code this statements:
/*
* Copyright © 1995 - 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
*
* - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.

Does this mean that as long as I got the idea of the code from sun Microsystems site, I have to do what they requested? Even if I took just a piece of it in my code, or even if I modified it to suit my interest??

So I really do not understand the range of authority of tutorials' authors, as I thought that they make the free tutorial so that I can read it to get more experience and use it in the way I like.

Does this also mean that all tutorial over the net obligate me to do the same in case of using their published codes?

What is the game rules here?

Thank you

**jlmp** · 10-01-2010, 05:41 AM

Well,this is what i have heard... I hope i am right! I was told that you can use those code for assingments or for your school but you CANT use it for applications that you will sell and get money from them, which is fair enough ;)
And to be honest, two different programmers for the same program do not have the same solution, its all about possibilities ;)

**pbrockway2** · 10-01-2010, 06:26 AM

Like a lot of things the value of legal advice is likely to depend on how much you pay for it.

I know nothing about the law (and am largely content to remain ignorant) but I laugh when I read things like http://download.oracle.com/javase/tu...oWorldApp.java. (basically the text you cited followed by ... hello world.) I don't know the law, but I recognise silly when I see it.

**Zack** · 10-01-2010, 06:33 AM

It means that, assuming your files are being shared (compiled or the source), this has to go at the start of every file that you place the pertinent code in:

Java Code:

/*
* Copyright © 1995 - 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
*
* - Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
*/

You may add a little caveat to that note in your source file saying what parts it pertains to. Additionally, these generally don't apply to education, however teachers usually want to know if you are using code from another website.