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.

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.

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.

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).