What Do I Do About My Ex-Employer Stealing My Free Code?

An anonymous reader writes "I recently found out that the company I used to work for is removing all the open source licenses (GPL and MIT) from my work, distributing it as proprietary software and taking all the credit despite the fact that they contributed nothing to it. They are even renaming it something really silly. What should I do?"

Comments

Errm... what?

[Splab]

So you worked for them and where paid by them. You decided to release something as GPL (your post doesn't say if this was sanctioned by the powers that be), but considering your termination, one would think you stepped out of line?

But, the fact is, you where working for them, earning money producing something *they* own. If they decide to revoke a license on something *they* own, they are squarely in their rights to do so.

Re:Lawyer

[beelsebob]

Or... learn what MIT licensing means... they're entirely free to distribute under whatever license they choose as long as they cite you. They're not stealing it, they're using it under the free license you provided it under.

As for the GPL – yes, you need to get a lawyer there, that is indeed a violation. Of course – if you coded this GPL code on their time, it's their copyright anyway, and they're free to use it any way they see fit.

Contributing or stealing?

[roman_mir]

FTFS:

I was terminated from a company that I worked day and night for for about 5 years. During the last 2 years of that time, I created a simple web framework and contributed it to open source. We had always used open source, so it was high time we became a contributor! Recently I found out that they have removed all of the licenses from the files (GPL and MIT), gave it a silly name, and have the intention of marketing it as a product. What should I do? I am trying to get past the fact that I am upset that I was terminated â" that pissed me off â" but the fact that they are taking credit for my work and making it proprietary is really bothering me! What should I do?

I just might have found the reason for your termination. Were you doing things that went beyond what your employer allowed you to do? You were employed and you were so called 'contributing' code under GPL without your employer explicit permission to do this, and from the text it looks like you have so called 'contributed' the code that you wrote for your employer.

This is like saying: I took this guys stuff and 'contributed' it for the good of the public, but I didn't ask the guy if he is OK with it and now he is forcing everybody to return the stuff I 'contributed' to him and he called the cops. I am really pissed off, what should I do?

Yeah, I think I did find the reason for your termination.

Re:Just fork it

[snowgirl]

Why don't you just fork it from the latest version when it still had the GPL/MIT license and release it in a new project? This should be even easier in your situation, because the company decided to change the name of the software, which means you can simply keep using the old name for the new project. This also doesn't confuse users, as they will probably remember and recognize the software by name.

Once you've got the new project up and running, you can of course sue your old employer for distributing open source licensed software without the proper licence and source code.

First paragraph is golden. If the code was at one time released open source, then you can totally fork it.

Second paragraph is however wrong. If the company owns the copyright on the work then they can relicense it all they want, even if it were previously open source.

As per someone noting below: if you want to know your legal rights and what you can do, talk to a lawyer. What you'll get here is a bunch of IANALs telling you bullshit, and IAALbInYl (I Am A Lawyer, but I'm not YOUR lawyer) telling you generic advice that possibly doesn't apply, and that you need to speak to a lawyer who represents your interests.

I also RTFA's comments

[ericvids]

The OP also said, in response to the first guy who asked pretty much everything that has been asked here in the slashdot thread:

Hi Llama, I have no such agreement. It was done on my own time with the company’s full support. They knew it was open source. I think now that I’m not at the company, they want to “control” it. As far as I understand it, they need to abide by the license. I think the tricky part is compelling them to abide by the license

Assuming this is all true (that he had no agreement with the company to cede over his rights to work done on his own time), I seriously doubt that it is legal for the company to do this. It seems to me that he was pretty careful from the outset to ensure that no such agreement was in the contract -- and in that case, by default, the copyright remains with him as the original author.

I’m going to report this to GNU project and warn them that if they don’t bring to code back in-line with the license, that I will send a letter to their customers to make them aware of the situation.

To me, that reads an awful lot like extortion.

How exactly is this extortion? Mere coercion is not extortion. He's not asking for money, property or services in exchange for all of this -- he just wants the source code (assuming it's rightfully his) to be licensed properly and that the company may not sell it as proprietary.