I'm always trying to become a better software developer and programmer, as I enjoy it. I do read a lot of books on the subject but I lack people to sit down and discuss my versus their interpretation of said books. I've been thinking that having a blog could be a solution to this problem. However I've also been thinking about the ethical and legal aspects of this. Let's look at some examples:
- I read Effective Java which basically consists of 78 tips on how to do things. I reference a few of them and maybe I cite a few paragraphs. I write how I interpret the advice and what I think about it. I give a few examples which I write myself.
- I read "The Pragmatic Programmer" which also consists of a lot of tips. I blog about it in the same manner as above.
To clarify:
- My intention is not to plagiarize.
- I do not want to spread copyrighted material. I want to stay on the right side of both the ethical and legal boundaries.
- In an ideal world I might want to summarize all the tips from the books I read. And discuss them individually with other people who has a similar interest in this.
- I want people to buy the books which I've read. If they don't already have them I'd like them to become interested and go out and buy them.
- If I describe my interpretation of the books I read and include the ability for other people to comment I think it would be the best way for me to remember that I've learned and check that my interpretation is correct.
My questions:
- How much can you cite from a book/article before crossing the line and what you're doing is copyright infringement? Where do you think the ethical line is drawn if it's not at the same place as the legal line?
- How do you handle this type of problem on your blog?