Poll: Have you ever "borrowed" other people's code/layout etc?

Yes, I did.

But I gave it back when I was done.

More seriously, how in the world can you do anything without some degree of aping others? "View | Source" gave us the Web we know today.

There's a difference, though, in a) glomming full implementations, and b) copying things because you like how they are done, understand how they work, and see little point in trying to "clean room" your own version just to get the same end results with "original" code.

Originality is overrated.

Giving credit makes the world a nicer place.

At some level, I think that anyone who hasn't borrowed code (or layout, if you're a front-ender) can be fairly classified as an idiot. No, I don't approve of site-lifting or mindless copy-and-paste "development", but if you've never paid the sincerest flattery to a problem elegantly solved you're either pathologically incurious or pathologically obstinate.

On the other hand, passing off visual design without modification (other than, say, the logo) as your own work is rather less than honest. Using someone else's code without understanding it (and without being able to judge its merit as written -- and assuming it's not a part of a "you are not expected to understand this" library) is equally reprehensible, not so much from an IP point of view, but because you are making yourself out to be something you're not.

I didn't vote, because neither really applies to me. I don't think anyone can claim that everything they do is completely original without being either ignorant or lying. Everything I do is influenced, subconsciously or consciously, by something I've seen before. So on that level, "everything I do is original" would be a lie for me.

At the same time, I've never "borrowed" anything directly by copy and pasting, with the exception of open-source code and always with copyright notices in tact. What Indinero did (it's not just the layout, another poster noted that the marketing copy is almost verbatim from Mint), though, is quite different from "borrowing" open source code. So I didn't feel like I should vote for that one either.

Borrow, yes. Be inspired, yes.

But if I take some code/design and integrate it without fully understanding it (I'm discounting in this things which are meant to be used so- modules, plugins, and so forth) I feel like it's intellectually dishonest. Of course I won't understand fully in intricate detail the codestack of an apache module. But view-source is useful as a learning tool: how did they do it, how can I do something similar myself?

I'm at a point where examples like this give me a starting point for adapting a technique to my own uses. If I copy/pasted, not only would it be intellectually dishonest-when the customer requests something that would require the infringing block be modified, I'm doing q disservice to my customers: if I don't understand every inch of that code, I'll likely introduce a multitude of bugs and elongate development time unneccessarily compared to if I had written said code myself.

Disclaimer: mobile, +5 drinks.

I once designed a site where the client basically asked us to clone Etsy screen by screen, to the point where we were even using their copy and I had to majorly intervene (etsy has some major usability problems). Not like a little shady outfit either, celebrity ceo with plenty of VC too. Sickening. Needless to say they bombed HARD.