Reply To: Ethical and legal question about CSS and JS codes.

[chrisburton]

My ethics are consistent. I know how much time and effort goes into creating something. I’ve had things stolen from me online and have had others claim it as their work. I was raised by my Grandparents and look at things differently than many.

That’s not the point! I understand your sincerity but ethics are subjective. Not everyone believes what you believe.

Here’s an example of something I find useful (if I can ever figure out how it works). In order to customize it for my needs I would need to make some changes to the code. I’m trying to back engineer it from the linked page to understand how it works. In the source code there links to the css and js. Not all would need to be modified as some are just basic function. My question is is it alright to modify the code and use it as long as I give the creator – James Florentino – of the code credit withing the code? Not all of the codes are credited and appear generic, but those that are I want to recognize the person(s) who created the original coding, if it’s alright to alter and use the coding in this example.

This question could have been avoided altogether if you would just read the license terms. Scroll all the way down to “released under MIT License”. It is important to read this so you have an understanding of what the MIT license consists of in case you run into this issue again.

I’m honestly not trying to come off as arrogant or condescending. I see this same issue come up relative to font licenses. Many people don’t know about the terms but if they had, these questions could be avoided and more importantly, save them time. That’s what I’m trying to do here, save you time in the future.