External sources

Highlight: Write using your own words. Don’t copy content from external sources because it might infringe copyright.

Don’t copy content from external sources because it might infringe copyright. Instead, paraphrase and link to their content. The types of content that may be copyrighted, include and are not limited to:

Text
Media (Images, audio, video)
Code
Logos and trademarks

Examples

Not recommended: Extensible Markup Language-Remote Procedure Call (XML-RPC): “XML-RPC is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol which uses XML to encode its calls and HTTP as a transport mechanism” (https://wikipedia.org/wiki/XML-RPC).

Recommended: Extensible Markup Language-Remote Procedure Call (XML-RPC) is a remote procedure call (RPC) protocol that allows a user or developer to send a request, formatted in XML, to an external application.

Avoiding third-party content

Avoid copying third-party content, unless you’re sure that you or your organization own the assets, or the rights to use those assets. However, you can reference external third-party content by linking to it. For additional information about linking to other sites, see External links.

Avoid copying content from these sources:

Third-party sources: Avoid copying from third-party sources which include but are not limited to documentation, websites, books, images, videos, papers, blogs, podcasts, and other works.
Reference sources: Avoid copying from dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Wikipedia.
Open sourceOpen Source Open Source denotes software for which the original source code is made freely available and may be redistributed and modified. Open Source **must be** delivered via a licensing model, see GPL. product documentation: Open source software (OSS) has different license options, which can range from no reuse without attribution, to complete freedom to use the material; each license is different and governs different aspects of a project. It’s not safe to assume that you can reuse this content freely. When in doubt, don’t use their content.
GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged by the repository owner. https://github.com/: Users have the ability to license their repository and content to change and distribute open source software. Each license is different and governs different aspects of a project. It’s not safe to assume that you can reuse this content freely. When in doubt, don’t use their content.