12. Sharing
XDA-Developers is based on the principle of sharing to transmit knowledge. This is the cornerstone of our site. Our members and developers freely share their experience, knowledge, and finished works with the rest of the community to promote growth within the developer community, and to encourage those still learning to become better. There are those, however, who take advantage of this model and try to make personal gains from the hard work of others.
In order to preserve the delicate balance between sharing for the good of the community and blatant self-promotion, regular members and developers alike must understand (and agree) to the following:
12.1. Give credits where due - Credits and acknowledgements for using and releasing work which is based on someone else's work are an absolute must. Works reported to have no credits will be taken down until proper acknowledgements are added by the member in question;
12.2. Courtesy - While most of the work released on our site falls under the umbrella of open source, that is not the only license model being used by developers on xda-developers. In order to prevent problems, we ask that if you decide to base your work on someone else's that you check the license model being used (as it might not be as permissive as one may think);
12.3. Re-releasing other's works as your own is forbidden. The code that you release into the wild must have something beyond minor aesthetic changes that makes it better than the last. As this can be subjective, kang reports will be reviewed on a case by case basis. If you feel that your code has been kanged, please contact the Dev Relations team (listed below) if you cannot solve the issue amicably via PM. Please understand that you will be asked to provide evidence to substantiate your claim;
12.4. Developers can issue take down requests (by contacting the Dev Relations team) under the following circumstances:
- in-process builds start showing up on forums when the developer is not yet ready to release the work;
- cases in which another developer is too aggressively soliciting donations or misrepresenting the work (kanging);
- unofficial builds where an official build is already available;
In summary, we want people to have access to work and knowledge alike. Sharing is good and courtesy and ethics go a long way.
Developers with questions, comments, complaints, or concerns about our rules (or anything!) should send a PM to our Dev Relations team (efrant or sykopompos) or to a Moderator. We are here to help!
