Originally Posted by Cairenn
ARR == All Rights Reserved
Just an abbreviation.  |
Ah. I don't think that's used anymore (in a legal context) except on pre-Berne stuff. I still see it on recent works, but I don't believe it's necessary anymore. It's a throwback to the old copyright stuff in countries that tried to limit some rights of copy protection if you didn't "reserve all your rights".
There are some potentially interesting ways it'd be possible to prevent code from being stolen, although the best way is to simply not release it.
Barring that, I suppose you could obfuscate it, or at least strip out all the comments and white space (which actually serves a purpose of making it smaller). You could even encrypt parts, and protect it with the DMCA if it's decrypted and distributed. But all these methods are tried and ... failed. If someone wants to steal it, they can find a way. Usually, it's easy. Sometimes it's tougher, but it can almost always be done. Certainly in this context, it's pretty easy.
But, to the OP: if you want to borrow code, simply contact the authors. Most of them will say "Sure! Just add my name in the header and documentation" or something similar. Many others will tell you to knock yourself out. The only people that will really care are those who did large packages which takes a lot of time to do, who actually might make some money from it.