Suppose I contribute a device driver to the Linux
kernel code, and I wrote the entire driver myself.
No one else has contributed code changes of
their own to the driver. Am I considered to be
the exclusive owner of my driver code, or does
someone else (perhaps Linus?) have some ownership
rights over my code, since my code could be
viewed as a derivative work of Linux? Can I
license my driver under multiple licenses
(perhaps both GPL and BSD) simultaneously? Can
I take code from my driver and reuse it in a
piece of proprietary software?
Suppose I write some code and release it under an open-source,
BSD-style license. Then, while at work as a software engineer
at company XYZ, I realize that some of my open-sourced code
would be useful in a project I am working on. To avoid
reinventing the wheel, I reuse my own code. Now consider the
following two cases:
Later, I make some improvements to the code I have reused at work, and add them back into the open-source version.
Later, I make some improvements to the open-source version (on my own time, not using any company-owned resources), and add them to the code I have reused at work.
My guess is that only in case 1, the company could claim ownership
of the new, improved version of the open-source code. However,
even in case 2, I can imagine a scenario in which the company
tries to claim ownership of my code by arguing that case 1 is what
really occurred. How would a case like this be decided in court?
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Suppose I contribute a device driver to the Linux kernel code, and I wrote the entire driver myself. No one else has contributed code changes of their own to the driver. Am I considered to be the exclusive owner of my driver code, or does someone else (perhaps Linus?) have some ownership rights over my code, since my code could be viewed as a derivative work of Linux? Can I license my driver under multiple licenses (perhaps both GPL and BSD) simultaneously? Can I take code from my driver and reuse it in a piece of proprietary software?
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Later, I make some improvements to the code I have reused at work, and add them back into the open-source version.
-
Later, I make some improvements to the open-source version (on my own time, not using any company-owned resources), and add them to the code I have reused at work.
My guess is that only in case 1, the company could claim ownership of the new, improved version of the open-source code. However, even in case 2, I can imagine a scenario in which the company tries to claim ownership of my code by arguing that case 1 is what really occurred. How would a case like this be decided in court?