Is code posted on SO under a license or something? I don't appreciate the wrong doing here --that the author of the app didn't understand what he copied is an assumption.

Yeah, I had the exact same reaction. Stack Overflow is used by a huge chunk of developers, so the headline isn't the least bit surprising.

This sort of feels like a "gotcha" -- a headline that's trying to make it look like someone got caught doing something wrong, in the hopes that the story will go viral.

All of the code on stackoverflow is under the creative commons attribution-sharealike 3.0 unported license - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

All user contributions on SO are CC-BY-SA 3.0 licensed.[0] This actually makes it difficult to incorporate into larger programs that are licensed any differently.

[0]http://stackoverflow.com/help/licensing

They are also considering changing the licence for code although nothing has been decided yet: http://meta.stackexchange.com/q/272956/136647

Better tell every developer in the world.

Copying and pasting from SO is perfectly acceptable as long as you know what the code is doing.

When I paste code, I include a comment with the link back to SO. I see it as the standard way of declaring a precedent in programming, where upvotes signal strength.

>Copying and pasting from SO is perfectly acceptable as long as you know what the code is doing.

If the code you're working on is CC-BY-SA 3.0 licensed, sure.

Story is 404, Nissan advertising budget pulled from the Verge or did they realise it is a non story?