Slashdot Mirror
State Trooper Fights For His Source Code
BarneyRabble writes to tell us that a Wisconsin State Trooper is fighting to maintain control of the source code for a program he wrote that helps officers write traffic tickets electronically. Praised by the state just 18 months ago, Trooper David Meredith is now suing the head of patrol claiming that the state is trying to illegally seize the source that he had developed on his own time. From the article: "Meredith, of Oconto Falls, defied an order from his bosses to relinquish the source code - the heart of the program - in October and instead deposited it with Dane County Circuit Judge David T. Flanagan, pending a ruling on who should control it. The case centers on how the software was developed. Department of Transportation attorney Mike Kernats said the State Patrol - a division of DOT - provided Meredith with a computer to write the software and gave him time off patrol duties so he could do the work. But Meredith said in court filings that he spent hundreds of hours off duty working on it, developing it almost entirely on his own time. He noted that he never signed a software licensing agreement."
What if the state claims that he was using their resources and knowledge about how ticket-system works?
Would that affect the case?
So the source code is his... plain and simple. This is why corporations usually make its employees sign an agreement giving the company all rights to source code developed for the company (and if they don't, it is usually just an oversight - it is not that they want the employees to own the code).
...encouraged him and offered to let him use their resources (time at work and a PC) he should of asked for some kind of agreement in writing that it was his.
My boss is very liberal about what we do in the IT department as long as things are running smoothly and we get long term projects done on time. But even here I am careful to keep anything I might potentially think of as mine at home and off company equipment.
Creationist Textbook Stickers Declared Unconstitutional by CowboyNeal
2) Accepting a work computer and other considerations has *got* to seriously jeopardize his claim. For heaven's sake, do *not* accept anything like that for work which you want to own, unless you get explicit acknowledgment that your employer sees it the same way.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
The state should have made him sign an agreement ensuring all code belonged to the state. They have some toe hold because he used inside information.
He should have had written permission to write the code on his own and plug it into the state's system for testing or use.
Both messed up, and I am not sure that there isn't some comeback on the origin of the source before he modified it. If license was on the basis of non-commercial use, he probably can't sell it.
On the bright side, with this kind of publicity, he probably will have no trouble finding a new job.
Government + IT + copyright/IP Law = messy business
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
So very true. The mere fact that he was using state resources probably is enough to do him in.
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
In 2003, the state sent Meredith to Iowa to get trained on the Iowa Department of Transportation's Traffic and Criminal Software, or TraCS. Iowa gave Wisconsin the software for free on the condition that Wisconsin not develop the application for commercial purposes, said Kernats.
At the request of his superiors, Meredith tweaked the program so that it would work in Wisconsin and created a way to import driver information and criminal histories into it. The software that imports data saves time and prevents errors, said Jones, the union president
Dang, on the one hand he's praised for going beyond call of duty (great game too) and on the other he was assigned to the project by his bosses.
This Trooper isn't a programmer first, he's a cop, who does cop things like write speeding tickets (over 2k a year FTA).
He screwed up by doing what his bosses asked him to do without having paper in place to cover what would happen to his work.
They screwed up by asking a non-programmer (I sure he is a code wizard but he was hired to be cop first) to do something beyond their job description using personal skills and ultimately personal time.
Interesting enough, if I read it right, if the State gets control of the modified software, they won't be selling it for commercial gain, whereas it seems Mr Meredith is interested in making money off of his work, fair, but Iowa originally provided the software with a clause preventing that.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
If it a derivitive of software from Iowa, and Iowa gave it on the condition of there not being a commercail product made from it, then the officer has not ground to do anything commercial with it anyone.
However, for who owns what he wrote, that state already praised him for going "beyond the call of duty"
If that's how they wanna describe it, then it is not theirs by their own admission.
Can't he just Open Source it? Especially if the derivitive of something that says no commercial?
So, he was asked to write the software for work, he was given a (work) computer to develop the software with, and he was told to do it on the clock. That sounds to me like developing this software was part of his job descripton. If my boss put me in the same situation, I'd say the software was goes to him, no question.
The fact that he did it off the clock hardly seems like his boss' fault.
If I had to pick based on that info, well, he'd need to turn over his code. Regardless you can be sure that neither party will make these mistakes again.
Lets start refering to The War Against Terror by it's initials. . .
Not that unusual. I also wrote some tools in my free time, which help me doing my work better. Not necessarily because I love my company and want to help, but because it helps me circumvent boring and tedious tasks.
I used to think along the same lines until I realized that it really does affect the ability to properly estimate cost for future work. When the company is preparing bids, they use historical data along with any planned development costs to improve efficiency. Your donating of time essentially threw off the bid system. Most employers would rather know about the amount of effort, even if they weren't directly compensating for your hours. I'm sure you'll also want to ensure that the employer would reward you at the next merit increase too. You'll also want to avoid devaluing your work by at least having the effort recorded.
Jim
But really, let's look at this from a semi-objective viewpoint.
Now, I realize he'd really like to be able to take this modification he made to the original program and sell it, but really do you honestly think he has a leg to stand on?
He's created a modification to a program using Wisconsin state resources, of which the license for the program itself specifically states that it can't be modified for commercial use. The fact that he was able to get this into court is the saddest part of the story. And while it's sad that he's commiting career suicide here, it sounds more like Social Darwinism taking it's due than the mean ol'government running him over.
I doubt he thought that far ahead, or thought they were gonna screw him over it. Everything's easy with hindsight.
If it's anything like where I work, the cops think they can do anything and get away with it. Typically, they are quite right; They have done anything and gotten away with it. So it wouldn't surprise me in the least if he thought he'd be able to just coast on through this with that mentality.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
- if it is the kind of work the employee is paid to perform,
- occurs substantially within work hours at the work place, and
- is performed, at least in part, to serve the employer.
Not all have conditions have to be met, 2/3 is enough. e.g. Miller v. CP Chemicals Inc., F.Supp. 1238 (D.S.C. 1992) IANAL but it looks like the cop doesn't own what he wrote. FWIW: repost fromActually, try it like this: (The American Way)
God bless MLK, I got the day off.
I work as a contractor for the DOD. A few years ago, a government employee did that. He was the boss of the shop, developed a cool DB system. Quit. Opened his shop, sold his system. Profit.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
This is a unionized job. So there's a union contract in effect.
There's no intellectual property clause in that union contract. But there's an overtime clause, which provides for time and a half for overtime and includes the line "Implementation of alternative work patterns or any variation thereof shall be by mutual agreement between the Employer and the Union." That says "Employer and the Union", not "Employer and the Employee", as is standard in labor contracts. Any special deals on hours have to be done through the union. This prevents the employer from pressuring employees individually. Any special arrangements about working at home have to be cleared with the union, and, of course, that's paid time.
"Work for Hire" is a very explicit thing in a union job. The company does not own your life outside work.
Unions - the people who brought you the weekend.
Of course, they might also abuse "eminent domain" for his code. I wish I were joking.
The officer is wrong on one point: this is a matter for Federal law. (The very same issue is why Novell was able to move SCO vs. Novell from Utah court to Federal Court.)
Federal law controls on copyight matters, overiding both state law and whatever contract he was (forced to) sign. And Federal law says that the program is his, and not the State of Wisconsin's, unless either (a) it was produced during the normal course of his working day; or (b) it was specifically commissioned in writing; or else (c) there is a signed written specific instrument of conveyance (US Code Title 17, Chapter 1 Section 101 and Chapter 2 Section 204).
"My opinions are my own, and I've got *lots* of them!"
The study has been done dozens of times here in the US, by various state and federal agencies. They ALL say the exact same things, which are, briefly --
- Speed limits are set artificially low from the 85th percentile (the universally agreed-upon standard).
- Raising and lowering posted speed limits has no significant effect on driver speed.
- Usually (as in, well more than half), lowering the posted limit increases the number of accidents in an area. The reason is because there's always one or two doofuses who actually obey the limit, so they're going 40mph while everyone else is going 60mph and those slow-moving people now constitute a very unexpected obstacle. You can argue that they are being lawful but the law is still stupid.
- Raising the limit, likewise, tends to decrease the number of accidents.
http://www.safespeed.org.uk/speedlimits.html Here's a great site all about it.
Department of Transportation / Federal Highway Authority study on the subject.
Even the government's own studies prove the speed limit is retarded and dangerous, but they stick to it.
Ask yourself why, and stop holding up this "for public safety" crap.
Breaking the law doesn't always mean you're wrong. The law. Is. Stupid.
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
The article is pretty vague about whether or not the code is a derived work of Iowa's TraCS, so let's assume it's not, since if it is, the case is extremely uninteresting.
In favor of the state:
It might be worth asking: how did the state obtain a copy of the program? If he admits there was no licensing agreement, then it sounds like he either developed it in-house, or he sold a copy of the binary to them. Or is he claiming he sold them a copy of the binary for $0 (a gift)?
That's ridiculous, and is in no way evidence that he did the work on his own time. A cop can write more tickets just by being an asshole. Time may be one variable in number of tickets, but attitude and contempt for the public can easily overcome that. Or, to put it more charitably, maybe he's a high-performing cop, very good at his job.
(BTW, the whole idea of whether or not writing code was within the scope of his duties is pretty alien to me, I guess because all my experience is with small companies. To me, anything an employer asks me to do is within the scope of my duties; the very idea of job descriptions (i.e. cop vs programmer) ever being the slightest bit relevant, is very weird to me. But I know it's a big world and different people have different types of employer relationships.)
The fact he had a state computer at home, is very bad for his case.
To tell the truth, though, I have a lot of sympathy for the guy. I suspect that what happened, is that he really was told to write the program in the line of duty, and he did so. Then, at some point, he got personally interested in the project, and gave of himself. Programming can be like that, and there have been numerous times that some problem that came up on the job, made me start thinking off the job. He probably did do some work (probably a lot) off the clock, because it's enjoyable. But how the hell do you separate the off-the-clock work from on-the-clock work, when it's the same kind of work? It's impossible. What's he going to do, turn in 42% of the source code? What a crappy situation. It's a shame he didn't do something totally unrelated to law enforcement, as his hobby. (Ah, but there's the rub: he wouldn't have expertise with the problem as a user. A cop knows what a cop needs.)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The situation with small towns writing ridiculous numbers of unwarranted tickets got bad enough in Florida that the state passed a law a few years back whereby you *can't* be fined for going 5 mph or less over the speed limit - you can only receive a warning.
Having a speed limit of 25 mph in a residential area where kids are always out playing? Great idea, and I say "enforce the hell out of it". Limiting people to 70 mph on a highway that can safely handle traffic at 90 mph? Unreasonable, but good luck getting the state to change that law. The state legislature doesn't mind doing the right thing when it only limits the income of small towns/counties, but they'll be damned if they let their own income be affected.
Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
Speed limits have to cater to the lowest common denominator. You might be perfectly safe driving in a 40 mph zone at 60mph in dry conditions, in your new car with traction control, ABS etc, especialy if you have lots of driving experience or extra training, but what about that other guy driving the old crappy 20 year old car with half bald tyres that he got as a retirement present, or worse, that guy who has just had his license a week, driving Dad's SUV in the rain?
A better system would be to have a base limit, (say, 40mph) and an additional max limit that is based on your car and experience AND the road conditions - that would apply to just you. With the additional proviso that if you are involved in any sort of accident over the base limit, or drive dangerously such as tailgating or excessive swerving/dodging, you get hit with a huge extra penalty.
Thus, if you really are a good driver in a good car and the road's empty or otherwise safe to drive at higher speeds, you would be allowed to - with huge penalties for abusing the extra leeway. Plus it would encourage drivers to actually get some advance driving skills and vehicles with decent handling characteristics.
Remember back in the days of the Soviet Union when a programmer wrote the game Tetris? Do you know what happened? The Soviet Union seized the source code and full ownership. After the breakup of the Soviet Union the programmer got ownership back eventually.
GG US Government, your looking more like a Communist Soviet Clone everyday.
Personally I would have destroyed the source code and told my boss and the justice dept to suck it. Even with consequences in mind.
Support your local school shooter, give them your firearms.