What Happens When Open Source And Work Collide?

Rob Kaper asks: "When being assigned to make changes to the Web site statistics program for one of the sites our company hosts, I was suprised to find that the site was using my own (open source and GPL-ed) program, which I had written long before I started to work at the company. Between my employment and the assignment to update the program for work I have been working on a new, improved version in my spare time. Many of the changes I am implementing or have planned to implement are the same as the ones the company would like as well. I am kind of puzzled and not sure how to continue. What will happen to the copyrights when I start working on the program during work time? Could I include those changes into my open source project? Would I have to reimplement them in my spare time?" Updated (Read on...)

"Since the program is GPL-ed I would like to think that all changes should be out there and ready to to be remerged in my home tree in the first place, but I would prefer to avoid a conflict of interest. The employer who introduced my code into the company no longer works there and I am not too sure that the managers give a damn about the GPL. A lawsuit to enforce it would not be an ideal situation.

So, any suggestions?"

Updated 5/14 by C : Signal 11 asks this semi-related question which many folks have already touched on, but this offers a different look at the issues involved: "I am in something of a quandry - I have been offered a position which I am very interested in, but the confidentiality agreement states that any inventions created during my employment become the property of my employer. This apparently includes works I create which do not use company resources. This concerns me - what claims can an employer legitimately enforce in a confidentiality agreement with regards to my 'intellectual property', and to what end? This is apparently a standard arrangement for employment in many high-tech organizations and applies to many of us." now we've dealt with this question in several Slashdot articles before, and the resounding answer was a chorus of "Watch that contract!" as you can prevent a lot of these problems by renegotiating with your potential employer, but what rights do employers have for writing such strong contracts. Do employers actually have the right to implement such clauses in employee contracts? I've heard it mentioned before (even here) that you can't sign away basic rights, and the rights to what you create on your own time and on your own equipment using your own knowledge sounds pretty basic to me. Thoughts?

Comments

Write FSF - now!

[Seth Finkelstein]

The people most competent to advise you are undoubtably the Free Software Foundation. You need to get relevant help immediately. Your work contract with your company almost certainly states that anything you do while being paid by them belongs to the company. It is much better to have the licensing issues ironed-out before the changes are made than after the fact.

This is a GOOD situation

[redelm]

In all crisis is opportunity. Why talk of suing? It's a very good thing they're using your web software, because it makes you much more valuable. Just know what's yours and don't let yourself get pressured.

What I would do is immediately go to the manager, and tell him that you've noticed they're using your GPL software, and you're happy about this. They have right to use it. Tell him you can save him alot of time just implementing the later GPL updates that give most of the enhancements he wants.

For the other updates, he has a choice to make: either put them under GPL since they are derivative works, or negotiate a separate nonGPL licence from you if he wants to distribute them as closed sw. Get paperwork either way. If no-one else has contributed GPL patches to your project, you should still be able to grant this licence. Of course, you'd be happy to work on either.

I wouldn't mention that you can work on non-distributed, in-houe enhancements. They might later decide to distribute them as closed, and then you'd have to sue. Having offered a second licence and being rebuffed would give you a much stronger position in this suit.

You cannot be forced into giving away your copyright any more than he can be forced into signing his house or car over to the company. Especially since you had that property before you came to the company, so there can be no dispute about ownership. Put it in exactly those terms.

The manager will have losts of questions about the GPL, and will need to consult your company's legal people. Give him time. It's a new concept for business.

Get your employer to sign something like this

[raarts]

This is a standard form supplied by the FSF exactly for these kind of situations.

I'm myself a PHB and when one of my employees asked me to sign it, I did it without hesitation. You may have some trouble explaning to them the GPL concept, but throwing some Geek buzz-words around (like Linux), and pointing to some NASDAQ successes (RedHat) may help.

And another thing: encourage them to ask around in their social network.

Good Luck!