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Open Source Developer's Agreement
ajv writes: "We've just released our open source developer's agreement. The OSDA allows companies or employees to negotiate into their employment contracts the certainty of owning IP they develop under clear guidelines. This will help all the people out there who develop open source software but are afraid to release it, or more likely, are afraid their boss will react and ask for it to be taken down or ask for a cut of the (non-existent) action. Get it on the main Web site, or on SourceForge."
After all, anyone developing software whilst they should be working is wasting their employer's time and resources, and if they're lucky enough not to be sacked then anything they produce is certainly the property of the employer - this is only fair. If you work in McDonalds and you take some ingrediants and make a burger, you sure as hell don't own that burger, why should open source software be any different from that, or even from closed source software. Just because you release the code shouldn't give it some magical status over any other program.
This seems another example of how open source advocates are pushing too hard to gain acceptance of open source and free software as a valid option for programs. Yes, open source should be taken on an equal footing as closed source, but it shouldn't be given any special rights or status, because that makes it appear as though it needs the help to compete with closed source software. And trust me, the more people try and get things like this for open source, the more that stubborn CTOs are going to resist it in favour of the latest technology in Computer Weekly.
well, i'm about to graduate from college, and have already signed a NDA/Non Competitive/Development Agreement with my first employer. I've lent a hand to a few open source projects, and have a couple other things of my own going on. I wish i had language like that before to ammend the document i signed to protect my interest in developing for "not the corporation". OSDA is something i support, and hope others endorse it as well. Hopefully I'm the last crop the has to put up with these sort of IP enslavements, and maybe in the first batch able to have our IP rights recaptured.
I feel sorry for you. I mean, if you really think your employer has that much power over you, you must live a really stifled life.
When you sign a contract with an employer, especially regarding IP, they only have a right to anything you develop for the company, on company time, with company property.
Taking a paycheck home to feed, clothe and house yourself and your family does *not* mean your home and your life suddenly become company property. Your salary is (hopefully) fair compensation for the services you render the company.
And if for some reason, you did sign over those rights, you made a mistake and that's your own fault.
Now, it does get a little sticky if the Open Source software you are developing "competes" with the proprietary software you are developing for the company. Even so, it is up to you to read, understand and agree with the IP contract you signed. If you don't agree with it, then don't sign it; or if you have to, don't work for that company.
What price your ideals against being corporate property?
Nothing can possiblai go wrong. Er...possibly go wrong.
Strange, that's the first thing that's ever gone wrong.
Tyler's words coming out of my mouth.
A few years ago, friends and i had started building an OS from scratch. Dubbed Pandora, we have a kernel that boots more machines than current Darwin can (you guessed it: PowerPC Macs).
I was responsible for the UI part (I claim no credits to the kernel, which also has a MacsBug-like debuger).
When I started working for my current employer (which also supports Linux for it's commercial apps), I wanted to make sure that my UI project ("Moira") was safe from any corporate entanglement. I had them sign a "copyright disclamer" wich specifically specifies that my employer disclaims any copyrights and interest in the project, thus protecting it.
On the other hand, this only covers this project, and I must ensure anything else doesn't go against the company's NDA (which I signed).
Both parties therefore are protected in what I feel is a mutually equitable agreement.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
If this is about code written on company time, I can't see how it can be justified that the developer owns the IP.
However, if the software is being developed outside of the employer, on a machine not owned by the employer, with software not owned by the employer, then I could see how this might be useful. There are quite a few companies out there that have policies stating that any software developed by an employee is IP of the company. Personally, I have worked under three different policies:
While I was in the USAF, I took a part-time job with Computer City, a CompUSA clone owned by Tandy the parent company of Radio Shaft, to make ends meet. Computer City required employees to sign an agreement signing over IP rights to Tandy for anything developed while a Computer City employee. I explained to the store manager that I couldn't sign the agreement for 2 reasons: 1) I had philosophical problems with the agreement. 2) Tandy would have a few problems claiming IP rights on software developed for the Air Force, especially when it was classified as Top Secret. The manager waived the agreement, and I was able to continue working for the company without it.
My next job was with a bank that had the same policy as Tandy. As a condition of my employment, I demanded a signed waiver stating that the policy would not apply to me. I basically told them that unless I maintained IP rights for anything I developed on my own time, I would not work for them. They had no problem with with waiving the agreement, and I got it in writing.
My current employer has it written in the corporate policy that employees own IP rights to anything written on the employees time. It is also in the employment contract. My employer is enlightened enough to know that people have lives outside of the company, and has acknowledged it.
Basically it comes down to how much you want to work for a particular company. If it is important enough to you, demand you IP rights in writing, and be prepared to refuse to work for them unless you get them.
$ man reality
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
People seem to be missing the point here. Of course, if you are employed, the work you create for hire, to get your salary, is the property of your employer. What is annoying, is when your employer insists that work you do unpaid, on your own time, is theirs as well.
My employer does this, apparently for no reason since no one in HR could come up with any reasonable excuse for keeping that clause in the contract. I negotiated an exception when I hired on without much trouble.
But this goes further than that. It explicitly codifies what such things are, protecting the coder. Furthermore, there's a whole 'nother aspect to this: the company that recycles Free (as in FSF) anf Open Source software in the products it produces.
Where I work we aggregate a great deal of code with Free software (specifically, major portions pf Red Hat [GNU/]Linux). Sometimes we extend GPL code (and will have to release our changes when we ship product). We've actually had RMS here to address our developers on the GPL and sensitize them to the fact that we take complience with it seriously. But, once you start using the fruits of the open and free sofware communuties, even if you ensure GPL complience, there's somewhat of a moral pressure to give something back, i.e. release your own original code as GPL, or otherwise open.
With this in mind, I've been striving for us to take the position that code we develop is either strategic to a product or product line, or not. If not, I argue that it should be GPL for two reasons: First, it helps make us good free and open software community corporate citizens. Second, it often represents overhead code that doesn't generate direct revenue through licensing, but requires support nevertheless. A community of people who can also use and extend it, is therefore a benefit. Sometimes we produce code that is stillborn: it would have to be released under the GPL if we distributed binaries, but we have decided not to make it part of a product. Why let such code rot? Why not give it away, in the hopes it might find a home?
Often, other than legal GPL complience, the effort to do these things is not justified by the company. an appropriate OSDA agreement would empower employees who feel this way, to release such code themselves, without fear of reprisials. That can only be a good thing.
You could've hired me.