What is this article actually saying? Sometimes programmers copy-paste things, and that's ok except when it isn't, and something something Van Gogh? Is there more to it that I missed?
There is a really good point that I found where it talks about the difference between "borrowing" (bad) and "stealing" (good).
> A borrowed object still belongs to someone else; you copy a style and it still belongs to someone else. To steal, however, is to make that idea your own. Taking credit for someone else’s idea is borrowing; understanding an idea and weaving it into your own work, that’s what he meant by theft.
So the point is when you 'lift' some code from somewhere and use it, use it fully, own it, have mastery of it. Only then have you 'stolen' it and become yours.
This is probably just stackoverflow's mediocre content strategy, they're trying to get some distance between all of their gaffes (the unilateral re-licensing of content, the monica celio mod debacle, etc.)
> A borrowed object still belongs to someone else; you copy a style and it still belongs to someone else. To steal, however, is to make that idea your own. Taking credit for someone else’s idea is borrowing; understanding an idea and weaving it into your own work, that’s what he meant by theft.
So the point is when you 'lift' some code from somewhere and use it, use it fully, own it, have mastery of it. Only then have you 'stolen' it and become yours.