Properly Contributing to Open Source While on Company Time?

Posted by Cliff on Thursday June 5, 2003 @04:56AM from the avoiding-the-SCOrn-of-your-superiors-isn't-a-WASTE-of-time dept.

egeorge asks: "I was wondering what kind of paperwork/policies developers have at their jobs concerning contribution to open source projects. I develop software at a company that derives almost its entire revenue from software. Some software is licensed to customers, some is run internally in a service model, but the software is our whole business. We have recently been doing more and more modification and customization of open source products, and we would love to give some of this back. As developers, though, some of us are a little hesitant to just start flinging code that technically still belongs to the company out into the world. We want to make sure we get clarification about what is or is not covered by our NDAs. So, what kind of procedures do other developers have to go through to get adequate coverage for Open Source submissions? I would like to suggest a policy to my superiors, and could use a few good suggestions."

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Re:Justin Frankel by Zathrus · 2003-06-05 05:22 · Score: 0, Troll

I think Justin Frankel would tell you that you can't ever be sure that you have any creative control over what you are doing on company time.

And I think the vast majority of people would say "duh".

It's on company time, of course you don't have control over it. They do. If you work on it outside of working hours, not using company resources, that's another matter. But check your contract first.