15.10 > The reuse of software raises a number of copyright and intellectual property issues. If a customer pays the software contractor to develop a system, who has the right to reuse the developed code? Does the software contractor have the right to use that code as a basis for a generic component? What payment mechanisms might be used to reimburse providers of reusable components? Discuss these issues and other ethical issues associated with the reuse of software.
As graphic designer, I have encountered problems before in the design industry with confusion as to who has rights to a created product. Software reuse seems like a similar issue and I think there will forever be a debate between groups who want to share everything and groups who want acknowledgement of their achievements and therefore the rights to their own software. The former group will argue that they have built working software and its reuse is important in order to save time and expenditure on creating more software that works the same way in a future product. The latter group will argue that they have the sole right to reuse software that they developed.
I think, at this point in my career, that I at least believe in rewriting the code portion of software. I think it is better to go over old solutions and improve them, even if they end up performing the same tasks as the older version. Otherwise, how is code ever going to improve if we just copy old solutions and never learn from them?