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zmajic410
7y

Ok guys I need advice, haven't posted in a long time.

A profesor is asking my team to build a java application that runs on a server with a very specific tech-stack (database, container, encryption, use-case and UI design) it's basically a fully fledged app that I know would cost somebody hundreds if not thousands to buy. The thing is I'm getting the feeling he's using us to write this code and then later distribute it while all we get is 20/100 points we need to pass the course. I heard rumors...

So what I wanna do is throw it on github (he's obviously expecting me to open source it at which point he forks it and bam!) and slap the most restrictive license on it. Now I don't have much experience with licensing or this sort of thing... any advice? I want to be able to go at his throat if I ever find out he used my code which I'm supposed to spend 3 weeks writing for free for a fucking "uni" project that's worth a fifth of my grade in that one semester course!

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  • 4
    7y
    It is quite common for the university to own the rights to anything you produce as part of the course. Check the terms but if you want to own the rights to this project then don't do it as part of your coursework. Keep your personal stuff private and don't use the university's resources to work on it.
  • 1
    7y
    @Bitwise no it's a new project and only 3 teams are doing it. He's filtered us by giving us a simple checkers game where most teams failed.

    Also we're in eastern europe it's a known issue here, dozens of projects were built by students only for the profesors to get funding or sell them.

    Thirdly he's very hushhush about it and he's known for taking other peoples shit, it's just he's kinda untouchable. For instance the whole university has to use his library to do something simple and then when students finish all they know how to use is his crappy java library so they end up spreading it...

    I know I sound paranoid, but I've talked to all the other members of my team and they agree we need to be careful. It's also a project that's very popular here, as it's an e-commerce platform and those are spreading like wildfire.
  • 1
    7y
    I think there are enough people at a college to write a java app, but if you are that worried, just buy it and spend your time doing useful stuff.
  • 0
    7y
    @DeadInside yes I know... it's why I'm asking for advice. The only thing they seem to have a right to is a copy of the source, but never did they say anywhere they have the right to distribute it.

    However he is not acting on the university's behalf, but he's expecting for it to be under an MIT license for instance... I don't want to put it under that since I'm going to spend (and my teammates too) days sitting at home coding this for basically nothing. I don't even have access to university resources as it's not that kind of thing... it's all a bit shady and he's a bit shady. I've done close to 10 uni projects and none of them had these kind of stipulations and restrictions, so I'm being skeptical. Knowing about horror stories that have happened to others.
  • 0
    7y
    @sharktits you don't understand. He's basically asking us to write an equivalent of a product specific e-commerce platform from scratch. That's no small task and we're going to have to slave over it for 3 weeks (there is 3 of us) and at the end I get nothing (a 100 instead of 80 in that course), I just want to make sure he gets nothing as well.
  • 2
    7y
    I'm not aware of any university course where you are NOT expected to spend 3 weeks working on a single project that you know will get marked then effectively thrown away. I really don't get the issue. You're there to learn, you trade your time for a qualification. That's it, everything you produce as part of your course is just fodder for your CV/portfolio. It's basically crap anyway - you'll look back on it in 10 years and ask yourself how you ever thought that that code could have been worth something.
  • 2
    7y
    What not ask your professor what his intentions are? Tell him that you are not comfortable with working on anything that may be of value without some kind of licencing agreement or payment. 😂
  • 0
    7y
    @DeadInside Dude I understand :) I've done 10 of them and most of them are fodder I shove on to github to live a miserable life. He's specifically asking me to do something high level and not fodder, and I work for a company on the side and this is basically what we do except I make a living out of it.

    I don't mind writing a project this just seems waaaay overboard for 3 people and such a stringent deadline. I expect to spend a week only writing the freaking database and subsequent queries for the business model he's provided.
  • 2
    7y
    Well if his requests are unreasonable and he's expecting you to use your companies resources then you have to talk to him about it. Also check with the head of department or the Dean.
  • 1
    7y
    @DeadInside yeah that's my last resort. At first I didn't think much of it, but I've been warned by multiple people I know here in the IT scene that this is an old school scam they've been pulling for 20+ years. It might not be the case with us but it's for sure similar. I just figured easiest way to fix it is strap a license where my code or any derivative of it can't be used for commercial or financial gain. And also I plan to code it into a fucking dead end
    so he can't modify it easily. However the fact that he wants me to make it production ready has lead me to be this suspicious as most uni projects are never even close to production ready.

    FFS he's making us make it easily scalable, why the fuck would we need to do that if the course is based on advanced java and gui.
  • 1
    7y
    I understand lol, i made 5 or 6 apps like that in the past 3 years
  • 1
    7y
    @fuck2code thanks this seems like a really good choice
  • 0
    7y
    @Bitwise wouldn't suprise me, he tends to be a cunty grader. He's known to grade differently when it comes to gender, last semestar my friend asked him outload about it... it was pretty savage, and he did lose a grade for saying it. The girls agree too, we've talked about it behind the scenes.
  • 0
    7y
    @Brosyl here we have an IT outburst of western countries outsourcing to eastern countries as the wages are cut 60% and the timezone is better than outsourcing to India or other asian countries. That's lead to a pretty savage IT community that does just about anything to get the best devs and keep their contracts, it's the wild wild west. And the main problem is stealing code and ideas through devs but since IT is a newish thing here the laws aren't in place to protect the little guys. If you find someone loyal and write him a blank check, only way you can be at peace with your intellectual property. It's gotten to the point private companies are opening private universities as they can't get enough devs.

    This is another story/phenomena I could write a 3 page essay about.
  • 0
    7y
    man, can't you just don't do it? you yourself said it is worth basically nothing.

    else, instead of using github you could use git lab, or vsts (those are the ones I know, there are more) to host your git repo privately
  • 1
    7y
    @vhoyer I would, but as the only one in my team who has a clue what all this entails and also being kind of the lead, I'd be letting my 2 buddies down, I know them for almost 10 years and they need those 20 points.

    Also after I wrote this I talked to an old family friend who is an amazing sys admin and he knows all the IT firms and everybody at the university from back when they were student colleagues, he's 99% positive this was ordered by a store as their e-commerce platform as he knows at least 5 other cases of that happening at my uni. So I go with github and a restrictive license as that makes it open for anybody to use, which then fucks the uni to getting paid for it but also fucks them from forking it and not supplying source code. I want them to atleast know I'm onto them... even though I have no rights as a student basically because the whole uni is usually in on it.
  • 1
    7y
    You can also make backdoors of some kind. And you can fuck them over or use them to prove your code has been used without your consent.
  • 0
    7y
    Just curious... can't one make up a custom licence? Smth like "Keep Your Fingers Away Licence", basically claiming "This source code or any modifications of it cannot be used in any commercial activities, including but not limited to selling this code (or modified version of it), running this code (or modified version) to gain or provide financial profit, etc. without explicit permission of its author in writing."

    ?

    Wouldn't this licence protect the source code? :)
  • 3
    7y
    I had same professor (more like head of the dept) who pressured us into making a college wide online exam system, we implemented it, actually let college use it for one semester, took the grades and graduated. We built a simple backdoor which would encrypt whole codebase and database (also never gave them access to git). So after graduating as soon as we asked them to pay license fees for letting them continue using it, they denied. We just did our thing.
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