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."

Comments

Resources

[lordsilence]

What if the state claims that he was using their resources and knowledge about how ticket-system works?
Would that affect the case?

Re:Resources

[bennomatic]

Companies have tried this sort of thing before. In the early days of Lotus 123, they realized that people were making pretty good money writing custom applications within Lotus using their scripting language, and so they made some machiovellian modifications to their licensing agreement that made all scripts written in their language their property.

My understanding is that there were some legal challenges to that, but the main thing was that they essentially killed the golden goose. Lotus was (and still is, in it's present incarnation as "Notes" under IBM) a great system, with amazing flexibility. A lot of people swear by it, using it to run just about everything in their business. But that sort aggressive licensing took a lot of wind out of L123's sales--pun intended--and other companies were ready to fill the void, turning it into an also-ran.

Re:Resources

[pilgrim23]

I worked state gov once, and wrote some very useful code, useful to me and handy for co-workers. But I was never hired to write it,nor was I paid for writing it. When I left, I left the code in a file location that was not archived, was not backed up, and was not saved. Still available, still used and everyone was happy till... 30 days later it went bye bye. I get a call at my new job "Where are those files????" I said: "Gee I am not sure, did you archive them with your other (paid for) important software? No? well then gee I'm not sure, no, I did not keep a copy, no, I don't recall how it worked, but if you pay me a reasonable consulting fee I might possibly could...."

Re:Resources

[WindBourne]

Knowledge? No. But they paid for part of the work. As such, the state will most likely say that it was an implied contract and either say thanx for the unpaid work or offer to pay him some amount. After all, this is not much different than having a secretary doing some of bosses work. Just because they are doing above and beyond what their job calls for does not give you relief from employers rights. After all, if any of developers started up a project at work that had NOTHING to do with the job AND we did it on company time, then generally we lose all rights.

The minute they...

[just_another_sean]

...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.

FYI...

[Otter]

1) In most states, the presumption is that work-related inventions by a salaried worker belong to the employer, whether or not an explicit agreement has been signed. (Don't know the specifics about Wisconsin, or about how a trooper would be classified.)

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.

Not as bad as it 1st sounds, still messy though

[Fox_1]

FTA Eighteen months ago, the State Patrol praised trooper David Meredith for going beyond the call of duty by developing time-saving software that helps officers write traffic tickets electronically.
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.

Grasping?

[coldfarnorth]

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.

Re:He didn't sign any agreement...

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

It's not that simple. Copyright law says a work-for-hire is "a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment." Court cases have determined that an employee that gets time off from other duties, and is provided work space and IT resources by the employer, can be commissioning a work-for-hire, whether a formal agreement exists or not.

Nor is it that simple either. A key word here is "scope." One important test is whether or not the employer is in business to create such works. So, a programmer employed by a software house and writing software is probably creating a work for hire. But the police are not in the business of creating software. So, even when provided resources and paid time to do the work, it does not necessarily follow that the result is a work for hire.

Re:the take-away point

[WED Fan]

Actually, try it like this: (The American Way)

• Write a little bit
• Demo it to the boss
• "I'd like to provide it to the State, free of charge"
• "I plan on selling it to other police agencies for a fee"
• "If you don't agree, I'll sell it to other agencies for a fee. Then, when the State wants it, I'll sell you a license."
• Profit

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.

This is a union job. Different rules.

[Animats]

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.

Federal Law

[coats]

IANAL, but...

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).