> [1] France in my case, probably Europe in general. What you do in > your free time is yours by default, land grab clauses are not > accepted, and it's only when you work at home on things you also do at > work that questions can be asked.
That's true in the US as well, but the sticky part is when you try to define such nebulous things as "free time", "company equipment", and "things you also do at work". If you're not doing programming at work, you don't need a disclaimer. And if you are, then how broadly "things" are defined becomes potentially relevant. The point is that although intellectual property law does differ between countries, it's not simple in ANY of them. A disclaimer protects not only the entity the code is being assigned to, but the person submitting the code. The only way you can be SURE that a company you work for has no claim on your code is by asking them to tell you that in writing (if it's ALREADY in your contract, I'd expect the FSF to accept a copy of that contract as a disclaimer). Otherwise, you, as a non-attorney, are doing what attorneys don't even like doing: trying to guess how a court might rule on a complex set of facts and the law.
