Hey everyone, I have been planning to do some work on wine for a while now, but after I started working I got myself a new programming job.
I'm worried about the copyright of any external work I do, so I need a little advice.
What do I need from my employer to clear me to work on wine? Is something verbal ok, or should I get it in writing?
Why would there be a problem? Unless you work for microsoft or something, how could there be an issue with that?
On 3/7/07, Nathan Williams nathan.andrew.williams@gmail.com wrote:
Hey everyone, I have been planning to do some work on wine for a while now, but after I started working I got myself a new programming job.
I'm worried about the copyright of any external work I do, so I need a little advice.
What do I need from my employer to clear me to work on wine? Is something verbal ok, or should I get it in writing?
-- Nathan
Nathan Williams wrote:
What do I need from my employer to clear me to work on wine? Is something verbal ok, or should I get it in writing?
The FSF says:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
| You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or | your school, if any, to sign a "copyright disclaimer" for the program, | if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names: | | Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program | `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James | Hacker. | | signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989 | Ty Coon, President of Vice
Felix
On 3/7/07, Nathan Williams nathan.andrew.williams@gmail.com wrote:
I'm worried about the copyright of any external work I do, so I need a little advice.
What do I need from my employer to clear me to work on wine? Is something verbal ok, or should I get it in writing?
Is your employer Microsoft? If so, I'd LOVE to hear how that conversation goes. There could probably be legal issues on the Wine side too.
Since your employer probably isn't Microsoft, then I'd do this:
1. Get it in writing from your employer. I don't think asking for that would be a big deal and they'd be inclined to sign something like that for you. This is just to protect your copyright in case your employer decides they could come after your copyrights. It could also potentially protect Wine in the event something happens with you and your employer, you get scared, and decide you want all of your work removed from Wine. We don't want that to happen. (See quartz from about 4 years ago as an example.) To do this right you need your company legal department to go over it. 2. Don't use your work email for sending patches to wine-patches. However, do use your work time for working on Wine. Ideally you could spend 100% of your time at work working on Wine.
-Brian
On Thu, 2007-08-03 at 06:40 +1100, Nathan Williams wrote:
Hey everyone, I have been planning to do some work on wine for a while now, but after I started working I got myself a new programming job.
I'm worried about the copyright of any external work I do, so I need a little advice.
What do I need from my employer to clear me to work on wine? Is something verbal ok, or should I get it in writing?
Depends on what your contract with your employer is.
I would advise that you get anything like this in writing.
Bill
Yeah, this was the way I was leaning. Thanks to all the replies, I'm actually in Australia, whilst I love this job and don't believe there would be a problem (this company is pretty laid back / not microsoft), but I did sign a contract and think there may be an issue with one of the sections.
When I finally come to submitting code, does wine need a copy of the agreement, or do I just hold onto it incase of future cmplications? (which is very unlikely as I see it)
On 3/8/07, Bill Medland billmedland@shaw.ca wrote:
Depends on what your contract with your employer is.
I would advise that you get anything like this in writing.
Bill
Nathan Williams wrote:
but I did sign a contract and think there may be an issue with one of the sections.
If you want, post those sections here.
There are some contracts that say "anything you do is ours". A reasonable contract, however, will say "everything you do using work equipment and on company time is ours". This may still be a problem if, for example, you code Wine on a company provided laptop.
When I finally come to submitting code, does wine need a copy of the agreement, or do I just hold onto it incase of future cmplications? (which is very unlikely as I see it)
No. Ultimately, it's your responsibility to make sure that the code you submit to Wine under LGPL is yours to submit. As far as I understand, all that will be required of Wine in case of a violation is to remove the code. You, on the other hand, might find yourself on the wrong end of a copyright violation suite from your employer.
Just get permission. Oral is ok if you can later prove that it happened (which is another way of saying "get it in writing").
Shachar
I asked James Vasile, of the Software Freedom Law Center, to comment on this. (For those who don't recall, the SFLC officially represents the Wine project on legal matters).
This is essentially what he had to say (and James, correct me if I get anything wrong :-/):
If you are employed to do programming (even at a university), or have made an agreement with your employer, school or anyone else saying it owns software you write, then you and we need a signed document from them disclaiming any rights they may have to the software. The disclaimer should be signed by a vice president, general manager, or anyone else who is authorized to assign software owned by them. Here is a sample wording:
As a general rule, get everything in writing. The below will suffice. Email is fine, paper is better. The project needs a copy (or, better yet, the original) of the document.
Here's some sample text:
ACME Corporation ("Company") hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the code written by Jane Doe for the program "[insert name of program]" ("Program"), including original Program code and documentation and support files, changes and enhancements to the Program and files, and any future modifications of the Program and files. We do not consider the code as work made for hire for us. Company affirms that it has no other intellectual property interest that would undermine this release, or the use of the Program, and will do nothing to undermine it in the future.
[signature of John Smith], 30 March 2006 John Smith, Vice President, ACME Corp.
Ideally, you would obtain this in writing and then get this on to James (vasille - at - softwarefreedom - dot - org, or use snail mail/fax from their web site).
Cheers,
Jeremy
If you signed any so called "intellectual property" contract with your employer, go visit a lawyer, show him or her the contract and be prepared to pay for the legal advice.
If not, it very much depends on the jurisdiction.
In a number countries that I know and operate in, if the only legal interaction between the employer and employee is of generic employment nature, anything that you create on your own time, with your own equipment and without using any proprietory technical knowledge that belongs to your employer, you own and are free to do with as you please.
What Wine project might or might not require is up to them. (However, it is my observation that most US entities (such as Wine) blindly assume that there is only one jurisdiction in the world - US, and act accordingly :).
NikNot
Jeremy White wrote:
If you are employed to do programming (even at a university), or have made an agreement with your employer, school or anyone else saying it owns software you write, then you and we need a signed document from them disclaiming any rights they may have to the software.
Wouldn't a paper saying they keep their rights, but approve the LGPL distribution also work? Would that still require us to have a written statement? After all, we do not require written from other people.
Shachar
I asked today and was told there shouldn't be a problem and my boss is going to check it over for me with the powers that be.
In the meantime I think I'll just start coding and not submit anything until I eventually get it in writing.
On 3/9/07, Shachar Shemesh shachar@shemesh.biz wrote:
Jeremy White wrote:
If you are employed to do programming (even at a university), or have made an agreement with your employer, school or anyone else saying it owns software you write, then you and we need a signed document from them disclaiming any rights they may have to the software.
Wouldn't a paper saying they keep their rights, but approve the LGPL distribution also work? Would that still require us to have a written statement? After all, we do not require written from other people.
Shachar
Shachar Shemesh wrote:
Jeremy White wrote:
If you are employed to do programming (even at a university), or have made an agreement with your employer, school or anyone else saying it owns software you write, then you and we need a signed document from them disclaiming any rights they may have to the software.
Wouldn't a paper saying they keep their rights, but approve the LGPL distribution also work? Would that still require us to have a written statement? After all, we do not require written from other people.
Sample text for LGPL release
To the extent ACME Corporation ("Company") has any copyright interest in the contribution written by Jane Doe for the program "Wine", including original Wine code and documentation and support files, changes and enhancements to Wine and files, and any future modifications of Wine and files, Company hereby licenses that contribution under the GNU Lesser General Public License. Company affirms that it has no other obligation or interest that would undermine this license, or the use of the Wine, and will do nothing to undermine it in the future.
[signature of John Smith], 30 March 2006 John Smith, Vice President, ACME Corp.
And, yes, a writing is still needed. Documentation of the right to release code is important. Employers are usually different from authors, both in their interaction with the copyrights and their interaction with the project, hence the different treatment.
-- GPG Fingerprint: 1571 BD1F 0EF3 B7DC 949E D6FC F70D A43C 6835 2635 vasile@softwarefreedom.org 212-461-1906
I was hoping to be able to submit some patches for wine over the christmas holidays. So I'm trying to sort out with work any legalities with regards to my employment contract and working on other projects.
Basically the contract states that they own what I do, unless I get permission from the relevant managers internally to write code for work outside of my employment.
In general there isn't any issues in work getting permission to work on open source projects, the company is involved in enough of them itself. However I did remember reading some emails over a year ago on this list about getting written permission, and examples of what would be needed. Just have a query on part of the text.
On Thu, Mar 08, 2007 at 02:19:21PM -0600, Jeremy White wrote:
I asked James Vasile, of the Software Freedom Law Center, to comment on this. (For those who don't recall, the SFLC officially represents the Wine project on legal matters).
This is essentially what he had to say (and James, correct me if I get anything wrong :-/):
If you are employed to do programming (even at a university), or have made an agreement with your employer, school or anyone else saying it owns software you write, then you and we need a signed document from them disclaiming any rights they may have to the software. The disclaimer should be signed by a vice president, general manager, or anyone else who is authorized to assign software owned by them. Here is a sample wording:
As a general rule, get everything in writing. The below will suffice. Email is fine, paper is better. The project needs a copy (or, better yet, the original) of the document.
Here's some sample text:
ACME Corporation ("Company") hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the code written by Jane Doe for the program "[insert name of program]" ("Program"), including original Program code and documentation and support files, changes and enhancements to the Program and files, and any future modifications of the Program and files. We do not consider the code as work made for hire for us. Company affirms that it has no other intellectual property interest that would undermine this release, or the use of the Program, and will do nothing to undermine it in the future.
[signature of John Smith], 30 March 2006 John Smith, Vice President, ACME Corp.
Ideally, you would obtain this in writing and then get this on to James (vasille - at - softwarefreedom - dot - org, or use snail mail/fax from their web site).
Cheers,
Jeremy
These lines specifically may be an issue.
files. We do not consider the code as work made for hire for us. Company affirms that it has no other intellectual property interest that would undermine this release, or the use of the Program, and will do nothing to undermine it in the future.
My reading of this, is it would cover patents as well. So if the company (it's a big multi-national, really really big, but not microsoft :) ), has any patents covering wine, not just the code I write for wine, this would mean they release all rights to any patents possibly covering wine.
Now I just cannot see them being willing to perform a risk assessment on all IP they might have in this case. Just to let one employee
I can see the possibility of getting sign off on them not claiming any copyright over any code I write provided it doesn't use any company resources (equipment or time), but not where it covers all IP.
So, do I have the correct reading of what the statement means?
Any suggestions on how to deal with this, without simply leaving the company. As I mentioned early, they do work on open source code here too, so I plan to discuss this with my manager as well.
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Bill Medland -
Brian Vincent -
Bryan Haskins -
Darragh Bailey -
Felix Nawothnig -
James Vasile -
Jeremy White -
Nathan Williams -
NikNot -
Shachar Shemesh