Frequently I write posts that others may find useful. In fact I have even been cited in software manuals and on other sites across the web as a reference or a resource for information on a particular topic. Earlier today a visitor to my site alerted me to the fact that two of my posts on the Nagios system and using it with Mac OS X had been copied outright on a blog located in Belgium.
While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, wholesale plagiarism is not very flattering at all.
The website in question is the WordPress blog published by CP IT Solutions, Inc. Both posts are obvious copy/paste entries from my own blog. Here are the details:
Copies
http://cpsolutions.be/wordpress/?p=213
http://cpsolutions.be/wordpress/?p=215
Originals
http://arfore.com/2008/10/12/starting-nrpe-via-launchd/
http://arfore.com/2008/09/25/nagios-nrpe-on-os-x-server-105/
The person in question is apparently a Microsoft Certified Professional, and also hosts a Joomla site on the same domain.
WordPress blog – http://cpsolutions.be/wordpress/
Main site – http://www.cpsolutions.be/JOOMLA/
I wonder what his clients would think if they knew that he was just copying other people’s work and putting it up as original thought? I have sent e-mails to both the owner of CP IT Solutions as well as the ISP for his site. Interestingly enough, for someone that provides IT consulting services they use a hosting provider rather than run their own site, as seen by the WHOIS entry below, hopefully they are going to be called on for hosting consultancy services.
WHOIS entry for cpsoltuions.be
% WHOIS cpsolutions Domain: cpsolutions Status: REGISTERED Registered: Wed Sep 27 2006 Licensee: Not shown, please visit www.dns.be for webbased whois. Agent Technical Contacts: Last Name: Kristof De Vlieger Company Name: DVK Systems & Consultancy BVBA Language: nl Street: Luikersteenweg 547 Location: 3800 Sint-Truiden Country: BE Phone: +32.11768005 Fax: +32.11768002 Email: [email protected] Agent: Name: DVK Systems & Consultancy Bvba Website: www.dvkhosting.be Nameservers: ns3.dvkhosting.com ns2.dvkhosting.com
Sure many of us use snippets and other items from our fellow IT professionals, but at the very least give credit where it is due.