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...from answers that were publicly shared without license. It's not the same thing, even though every LOVES to make this argument.

Also: Over the past 20 years, I could count the number of times on one hand that I was been able to get away with out-right copy/paste from SO.

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Stackoverflow code has a license (not per post, but a blanket one depending on which year - https://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing it's mostly CC BY-SA.) I've written corporate policies that emphasize that you can learn from SO answers, but (as you point out) they basically never fit exactly - and you should include a link to the original so when the next Ubuntu LTS breaks your clever hack, we can see if someone has already posted a fix :-)

In a prior job, I had to scan a 2M+ line codebase for software license violations to support the sale of a unit to another corporation. One class of violation was using SO snippets, because they are licensed under CC and not compatible with the distribution model the new company was planning. Many weeks of work to track them all down.

Fair enough! Though my wholesale copy/paste point still stands.

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