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As far as I see it is essential that write down that the application will be distributed under the GPL and that you'll get the copyrights on the finished work (if that's the deal.) Under the "work for hire" doctrine your employer normally gets the copyrights on your work.
Copyrights have to be transferred in writing, but a copyright transfer can be seen as payment. You could put something like: "Upon completion of the work [employer] will transfer the copyrights on ..." in your employment contract; but you should get another paper with the actual transfer.
I would not mind leaving copyrights with an employer, if I got full relicensing rights. What matters is that I can give permission to xxxBSD to use a BSD license for my code.

Disclaimer: IANAL, use this advice at your own risk. If it breaks, you may keep the pieces, etc. etc.
Remember, this is Slashdot.

Well, for all intents and purposes, to anyone that really believes in FOSS and is informed about the deal, Novell is now a pariah.
I've lost count of the number of people calling for a boycott, or reporting that they have switched away from, or are in the process of switching away from Novell products.
I think that it is essential that this is continued. The community is the strength of FOSS. If we cannot stand together against what in essence is a form of corporate blackmail Microsoft will continue to drive wedges into the community. It's classic divide and conquer tactics.

We need to continue to spread the truth about this deal so that people have the information they need to see it for what it is, and shun Novell for he traitor in our midst that they have become. Hopefully Novell will come to their senses and abandon the deal. If not, the boycott needs to be as absolute as we can make it. We cannot allow stabbing the entire community in the back to be profitable. Currently, Novell is the new SCO, and should be treated as such.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200611030 73628401
http://technocrat.net/d/2006/11/2/9945
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/20061109a.html
http://news.samba.org/announcements/team_to_novell /

Last Thursday, Novell and Microsoft announced a new collaborative effort involving both licensing and technology. The Software Freedom Law Center has been following the situation, and as its CTO, I've held a particular interest in how it will impact Free Software developers. One result of the agreement, Microsoft's patent pledge to developers, has received significant interest from the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) development community. A careful examination of Microsoft's Patent Pledge for Non-Compensated Developers reveals that it has little value.

Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.

Novell here is stepping outside the line of fire and agreeing with Microsoft that *end users* are the ones that you must go after in any patent infringement dispute. Shades of SCOsource. Thanks for nothing, Novell. More questions: When were Novell SUSE customers asked if they wished Novell to negotiate a agreement with Microsoft on their behalf? When were Novell SUSE customers asked about the terms of said agreement? What consideration does Microsoft get from Novell's customers? Does negotiating this agreement on Novell's customers' behalf indicate that Novell assumed Power of Attorney for their customers in this matter? Did Novell truly represent the best interest of their customers using Power of Attorney? Can Novell legally assume Power of Attorney for their customers without a written grant? Do Novell customers have the ability to "opt-out" of this agreement? Is this agreement binding on customers?

Mmh, yeah, the terms aren't so bad... for Steve. According to SFLC's Bradley Kuhn, the pledge is revocable at any time: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/news/20061109a.html

Quoting a response by the Software Freedom Law Center:

the latest Software Freedom Law Center white paper maintains ... these issues were reviewed and it was found that there is in fact no special risk for developing GPL'd code under SOX. "Under most circumstances, the risk posed to a company by SOX is not affected by whether they use GPL'd or any other type of software. Arguments to the contrary are pure anti-GPL FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," the paper says.

In case you have no clue what "Sarbanes-Oxley" is, you can check out official info and the Wikipedia article. Basically it is a set of laws that place limits on what companies (and those working for them, especially upper management) can do. This has mostly to do with declaring assets and transfers of money. It tries to prevent companies from defrauding investors and so on. These laws were enacted after the Enron scandal.

Wasabi's complaint is that under these laws, you have to declare all assets, including intellectual property. Their rationale is that using open-source software, you may be in violation of the law if you do not review and declare that usage.

As was pointed out last time this was discussed on slashdot, a company would only be in trouble if they were already doing something illegal: violating the GPL. If you violate the GPL, then you're misrepresenting your ownership of IP (claiming to have a license you don't), and thus are also violating Sarbanes-Oxley.

So what's the problem? If a company follows the GPL, then everything is fine. They have nothing to worry about. If they violate the GPL, then they're breaking multiple laws. So, as always, companies should make sure that what they are doing is legal. This in no way diminishes the extent to which GPL software can be used in commercial environments. Wasabi acts as if there is some tremendous additional legal burden to using GPL software. However it seems that Sarbanes-Oxley would equally apply if you mis-represented your ownership of non-GPL software. So there's no difference. (You can read the Software Freedom Law Center white paper for a more complete explanation.)

Do you mean the FSF's GPL Compliance Lab, or, maybe, the non-FSF Free Software Law Centre?

Not sure how the GPL gets enforced, but I imagine the people who do know can be found here:
GPL Compliance Lab
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/compliance.html

Software Freedom Law Center
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/

"Maybe the FSF (or someone) should collect money on the behalf of those GPL coders who want to sue violators but can't do it on their own."

The Software Freedom Law Center does exactly that, and is headed up by Eben Moglen himself...

From their page:

We provide legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software.

Free and Open Source Software ("FOSS") is maturing at a rapid pace. The FOSS production ecosystem, once dominated by a few small not-for-profit entities and individual contributors, now includes a global array of individuals, not-for-profit entities, and commercial developers and redistributors. In this mixed-model organizational environment, all FOSS developers must have an environment where liability and other legal issues do not impede their important public service work. The Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) provides legal representation and other law related services to protect and advance FOSS

The Software Freedom Law Center will happily work to defend many projects, which are distributed under the GPL. The center is run by Eben Moglen. --- Yeah, the guy who wrote the GPL.

Their desire and mission is to go above what the FSF could do for projects, and actually provide real support and help to those people who are having their GPL rights violated.

The majority of times they can do it pro bono (and as was mentioned above, most times, they need only send a letter) but there are some cases were prohibitive costs would require the author to provide payment for some actions (such as hiring a lawyer in Hawaii, or flying a lawyer out to Hawaii, if necessary)

So, if you're having problems with some company ripping off your GPL code, shoot an email out to the SFLC, and see what they can do for you.

Oh, and by the way, the majority of offenders quickly either wise-up or apologize for their ignorance on the licensing issues almost immediately upon receiving a letter saying that they're violating the GPL. Again, most companies comply, and it were either accidental (and they comply because they want to comply) or a poor attempt at hiding it (and they comply because they don't want to get sued.) Only a small handful of companies will actually go to suit over a GPL violation (especially since they can't win, because even if they declare the GPL invalid, traditional copyright applies, and they never had rights to the code anyways)

A developer trying to make something freely available needs to collect donations to get some legal team together to defend their work and keep the right to keep their name associated with THEIR work.

Perhaps they should contact these guys:
http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ (previously covered on slashdot)

FSF has also been taking action against GPL infringers for a long time now AFAIK.

Some infringers do get away with it, one such case was a proprietary messenger application misappropriating Psi's code, but the defense is available if the developers are willing. Another sad case for me are the Linux kernel binary-only modules which apparently aren't perfectly legal either, yet I myself have a D-Link router that contains several. No-one is sure what the court would find on those, though.

I think Stallman must be feeling lonely, and lashing out at Gates. Not only has Moglen started up his own organization, but I see the Kuhn has left the FSF to join him...
http://softwarefreedom.org/team.html
http://www.fsf.org/news/new-executive-director.htm l

Licensing

The SFLC is directly involved in its clients' FOSS license development efforts, including development of the GNU General Public License v3 by the Free Software Foundation, and offers licensing assistance, particularly license development and implementation consulting, to FOSS developers other than its clients. The SFLC is also available to provide community-wide license review and compatibility analysis, for the purpose of identifying and addressing the causes of unnecessary FOSS license proliferation.

Did you note the Center will be working on the next version of the GPL, for starters? So, what do you think? Is this not a grand idea? Here is the press release: [...]