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Solutions for When Managers Hijack Your Code?
Chiggy_Von_Richtoffe asks: "Two friends of mine work at a warehouse distribution center. First, they are customer service representatives, not paid developers. Secondly, the are developing the software in their spare time to make their jobs easier using MFC and HTML. Their bosses have already talked up the idea behind their backs, and then came back to them with a deadline to release the (in-house) software, on a national level. However, they haven't had time to release their first version, and the bosses don't even know what the software can do nor even what it looks like. There is a feeling that the bosses may pat them on the head and run with the software for their own promotions. What should they do?"
Seriously. Don't develop apps for work in your spare time. Just don't.
You may think of it as a fun side project, but your boss will invariably think of it as overtime. Nowadays, it doesn't make a damn bit of difference if you did it from home, either. Everyone brings work home with them all the time, so if you try to argue that it wasn't something you did for work because you did all the programming at home, your boss is either going to laugh at you because you've done plenty of work at home for him in the past, or, if he's clueful, he's going to laugh even harder because he knows that installing this software on the company servers is not something you can do from home.
Now I'm all for putting limits on what work can ask you to do on your personal time, so the boss shouldn't expect you to start working mandatory overtime to complete this app, but if he wants to shuffle some duties around and make development of this your primary responsibility, well, tough luck, but you were asking for it.
(I've been both, and currently am operating as both at the same time).
Assumption I am making:
1) There is a likely chance that you worked on this software durring office hours, after all, you developed it for this specific job. You are not a contractor, you are a full time employee. This makes it difficult for you claim it is yours because you developed it for your specific job. The only thing you really have going for you, is you are not a "developer". The assumption I will make here is that the company owns it, because if they see value in it, you'll get threatened with lawsuit if you claim you own it now. You probably signed a non-compete agreement anyways, saying you can't work on company related things at another company (OR YOUR OWN TIME). If its company related, they own it no matter what. Sorry.
You should expect recognition for your efforts outside your normal job. You could even get a promotion, into development, or maybe a bump up on the salary pole in customer service. As an engineer, I would actually expect something in return for this effort, if it turns out to be a large scale solution to a bigger problem. If you don't get anything, what the hell, you have a customer support job, quit and now go get a development job with this on your resume.
Your manager has a bigger objective, most "managers" have fallen into the trap already and are trying to climb the corporate ladder. He will be trying to get a big raise or promotion.
It makes more sense for a manager to get the raise/promotion, after all, he is responsible if everything goes WRONG not the engineer. Alot of people assume the opposite, if everything goes right, reward the engineers, but if everything goes wrong, the fire the manager. This isn't the case, and that is how its observed from above. Most "engineers" observe it "I get the reward if everything goes right, and my Manager is fired if I fuck up", that's NOT the case. Sorry.
Your case is fuzzy, because the Manager wasn't originally responsible for delivery of an alpha-product you've created, however may turn it into a real-project, with the VP's or company owners knowing now whats going on, they may now assume responsibility if it fails for lost time and resources. However, you have to look out for what really happends, it could be your managers keep it secret from the guys above until you finish the project, that way if it fails, they can just pretend like it never occured and no harm done. If it succeedes then they say they did this big thing for the company and pat you on the head.
Modesty is one of life's greatest attributes
If they developed it on their own time (and preferably at home, not using company computers), then it's their IP.
It's not quite that simple. If they did it in the office, using the company's resources, then the company probably has a claim. It also depends on their employment contract. Some give the company rights to any material including software developed by an employee regardless of when or where it was developed during the period of employment. You can argue that such terms are unconscionable and wouldn't stand up in court but asserting such a claim would be a long, painful and expensive process that would have serious negative career consequences.
Of course, IANAL.
Many arguments have been made regarding the fact that we don't know much about the circumstances of these individuals and what kind of contracts they may have, when they've been working on it, etc. However, there are some things we can probably ascertain.
We do know that they are customer-service reps. Which means two very likely things. First, they were not hired for their programming skills, which means they are likely not being adequately compensated for this software. Second, they are probably not under a non-compete clause of any kind. While programmers and high-level managers are often put under such things (which in my experience don't hold up very well unless they are extremely explicit), customer service reps are RARELY if EVER put under such restrictions. Why? Because the industry knowledge is pretty well standard for most of those things, they rarely have access to real trade-secrets, and most of their skills involvin simply talking and entering data - mundane everyday stuff.
The problem is that somehow they worked on software in their own time, at the company or not, and their bosses are going to try to make a credit claim. If they want credit at the company, they need to start writing documentation, documenting out the development process, the origin of the idea, and so on. Get those documents out to the right people and let them look over them. Put down where the project stands, how many hours of work they estimate they need to get to a completed project, and what a reasonable compensation level would be.
Lastly, they should sign their code, so that when some stupid boss claims credit for it, they can point to the code itself.
The big question would be whether the whole organisation is made up of jerks, or just their immediate bosses who might try to claim credit for it. If they don't think there is any fair management there, they should just stop working on the code, or write some psuedo-modules that make no sense and if implemented by someone who can't write code proeprly would eat the system, or else mess up the logic of the app for the uninitiated. Then they should quit and get better jobs.
Linux - because it doesn't leave that Steve Ballmer aftertaste.