War stories on releasing code
Morning, [ Apologies if there's any misformatting, or a horrendous disclaimer at the end. ENOCHOICE about using Outlook. . .] So I'm writing some (hopefully) fairly useful Perl modules at $dayjob, and want to release them to the outside world. I suspect this is going to be a novelty to the corporate lawyers. Has anyone here had experience of doing this sort of thing at large companies, and making the arguments for open source'ing your code? Any war stories, or tips you can pass on? N ([EMAIL PROTECTED], for those of you that know me there. . .)
Re: War stories on releasing code
On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 09:20:22AM -, Clayton, Nik [IT] wrote: So I'm writing some (hopefully) fairly useful Perl modules at $dayjob, and want to release them to the outside world. I suspect this is going to be a novelty to the corporate lawyers. Has anyone here had experience of doing this sort of thing at large companies, and making the arguments for open source'ing your code? Any war stories, or tips you can pass on? My tack has usually been to get it nailed down before I start coding. But if you haven't, the best arguments I've met are: - there's nothing proprietary to the business in this code; - nor does it give away any business secrets; - therefore having it available doesn't help the competition. - even if the competition decided to use it, you'd still have the original author available; - if it's open-sourced, other people will help improve it while I work on stuff that _is_ specific to the business Saying it'll get a good reputation with the open source community is usually not helpful. Go for the greed... R
RE: War stories on releasing code
it may be too late already. You contract will probably state that anything you write automatically becomes property of the company. One contract that I was presented with specified that anything I came up with ( software, financial method, lawnmower ) then became the companys property. You might want to delay releasing anything until you're next contract renewal or until you get your contract altered ( causes great fun with the HR people You want to *give* software away ? and it's called links ?). Best o luck fella Suspect Dave -Original Message- From: nik.clayton Sent: 19 March 2002 09:20 To: london.pm Cc: nik.clayton Subject: War stories on releasing code Morning, [ Apologies if there's any misformatting, or a horrendous disclaimer at the end. ENOCHOICE about using Outlook. . .] So I'm writing some (hopefully) fairly useful Perl modules at $dayjob, and want to release them to the outside world. I suspect this is going to be a novelty to the corporate lawyers. Has anyone here had experience of doing this sort of thing at large companies, and making the arguments for open source'ing your code? Any war stories, or tips you can pass on? N ([EMAIL PROTECTED], for those of you that know me there. . .) Visit our website at http://www.ubswarburg.com This message contains confidential information and is intended only for the individual named. If you are not the named addressee you should not disseminate, distribute or copy this e-mail. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. E-mail transmission cannot be guaranteed to be secure or error-free as information could be intercepted, corrupted, lost, destroyed, arrive late or incomplete, or contain viruses. The sender therefore does not accept liability for any errors or omissions in the contents of this message which arise as a result of e-mail transmission. If verification is required please request a hard-copy version. This message is provided for informational purposes and should not be construed as a solicitation or offer to buy or sell any securities or related financial instruments.
RE: War stories on releasing code
You contract will probably state that anything you write automatically becomes property of the company. One contract that I was presented with specified that anything I came up with ( software, financial method, lawnmower ) then became the companys property. That's not so much the problem -- yes, the contract already says something similar to that. I'm now at the point of going in and saying Yes, you own the copyright on this piece of code. Here's why it's going to be a good idea for you to release it under a (BSD) license anyway. N -- Global Messaging Victoria Plaza, 2nd Floor x21206
RE: War stories on releasing code
On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Your contract will probably state that anything you write automatically
becomes property of the company. One contract that I was presented with
specified that anything I came up with ( software, financial method,
lawnmower ) then became the companys property.
Of course it does. Doesn't mean that the company wouldn't benefit from it
being open source. You have to look at the pros and cons of the situation
and work out if that would be true.
The main advantage I can see with software being open source is that you
can show people the code. When you can do that you can often get experts
in the domain you are working in to assist you. This is the kind of
work that costs several thousands of pounds if you were to actually have
to pay for it, but is given willingly by the developers in return for the
work being made publicly available.
Later.
Mark.
--
s'' Mark Fowler London.pm Bath.pm
http://www.twoshortplanks.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]
';use Term'Cap;$t=Tgetent Term'Cap{};print$t-Tputs(cl);for$w(split/ +/
){for(0..30){$|=print$t-Tgoto(cm,$_,$y). $w;select$k,$k,$k,.03}$y+=2}
Re: War stories on releasing code
Read the GPL carefully. Read your employment contract carefully. Remember you can't un-GPL source code; all you need is a GPL'ed core that you can build on, that can be produced by anybody. Perhaps yourself if works created in your own time are your own property. Then just make sure you're not specifically prohibited from sharing the changes. My opinion is that this is acceptable except where the changes you are making need to be kept secret for competitive advantage, in which case you need permission. Sam. On Tue, 19 Mar 2002 09:20:22 - Clayton, Nik [IT] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Morning, [ Apologies if there's any misformatting, or a horrendous disclaimer at the end. ENOCHOICE about using Outlook. . .] So I'm writing some (hopefully) fairly useful Perl modules at $dayjob, and want to release them to the outside world. I suspect this is going to be a novelty to the corporate lawyers. Has anyone here had experience of doing this sort of thing at large companies, and making the arguments for open source'ing your code? Any war stories, or tips you can pass on? N ([EMAIL PROTECTED], for those of you that know me there. . .) -- Sam Vilain, [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://sam.vilain.net/ 7D74 2A09 B2D3 C30F F78E GPG: http://sam.vilain.net/sam.asc 278A A425 30A9 05B5 2F13 Hi, I'm a .signature virus! Copy me into your ~/.signature, please!
RE: War stories on releasing code
Read the GPL carefully. I won't be using the GPL (if this code is released). It'll be BSD licensed. N -- Global Messaging Victoria Plaza, 2nd Floor x21206
Re: War stories on releasing code
On Tue, Mar 19, 2002 at 09:20:22AM -, Clayton, Nik [IT] wrote: So I'm writing some (hopefully) fairly useful Perl modules at $dayjob, and want to release them to the outside world. I suspect this is going to be a novelty to the corporate lawyers. Has anyone here had experience of doing this sort of thing at large companies, We try to do this whenever possible at the BBC. Amongst others, our to-do system is open soresed and of course there's betsie. and making the arguments for open source'ing your code? Any war stories, or tips you can pass on? Tip: deliberately infect your code with the GPL :-) With this in mind, I keep meaning to write Acme::Licence, which will make it oh-so-easy to make your code GPL-compliant, whilst disguising itself as a handy-dandy module for making sure your code is licenced and can tell users about it :-) -- Grand Inquisitor Reverend David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david The test of the goodness of a thing is its fitness for use. If it fails on this first test, no amount of ornamentation or finish will make it any better, it will only make it more expensive, more foolish. -- Frank Pick, lecture to the Design and Industries Assoc, 1916
