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Submitting Corporate IP to Open Source Projects?

Posted by Cliff on from the returning-something-to-the-community dept.

dannyp asks: "Does anyone have advice and/or references for working with a (very large and cautious) corporate legal department to establish a policy for submitting company-developed patches back to Open Source projects? I work at a large company outside of the technology sector (financial services). As we've succeeded in getting Open Source packages approved for use within the company, we're trying to figure out how to submit patches back to the community. We have to convince management that it makes sense to give this Intellectual Property away, and then (more difficult) convince Legal that we aren't going to get sued for doing it. Any advice?"

1 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Bait and switch? by foobar104 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I don't intend this as a flame-- or FUD, for that matter-- but it almost sounds like you may have inadvertently pulled a bait-and-switch on your company.

    You said, "we've succeeded in getting Open Source packages approved for use within the company," and this implies that you yourself-- as part of your group or whatever-- advocated the use of Open Source software inside your company. Did you make it extremely clear to the people to whom you were advocating that Free software is not entirely free?

    What I mean is this: when you download GNU SurfWriter from an FTP site, you don't have to pay anybody. You get to use the software for no money. But there's an opportunity cost attached. In using the software, you give up the ability to redistribute it in binary-only form. You give up the ability to incorporate any part of it in a closed-source application. You give up a number of "rights" as part of the "cost" of GNU SurfWriter.

    Put yourself in your boss's shoes for a minute. One of your employees came in last month and convinced you to use GNU SurfWriter. It's free, he said. You get the sources, he said, so you can modify it as you need. All good reasons.

    Now, just a few short weeks later, that same employee comes in and tells you that you either should or must (depending on the circumstances) release your company's changes to GNU SurfWriter to the public. He never said anything about having to give away company IP when he argued for GNU SurfWriter last month! Bastard! Now you've got to explain this to your boss!

    Net result: your boss, maybe your whole company, has a bad impression of the GPL specifically, and Open Source and free software in general.

    I'm neither trying to advocate or deride the GPL in this post. I'm just pointing out that that particular license is definitely two-sided, and failure to be very clear about its limitations can be a bad thing. Without knowing it, you yourself may have spread FUD by not telling the whole story.