Can Employer Usurp Copyright On GPL-Derived Work? 504
An anonymous reader writes "I am a recent graduate, and I've been working on my own on a project that uses GPL-licensed libraries. Later a university department hired me, on a part-time basis, to develop this project into a solution that they needed. The project's size increased over time and soliciting help from the open source community seemed like the obvious thing to do. However, when I suggested this, my boss was not interested, and it was made clear to me that the department's position was that copyright of the whole thing belonged to them. Indeed, by default work created for an employer belongs to the employer, so I may have gotten myself in the same trap discussed here years ago. Even though I want to release my code to the public I don't know whether I have the legal right to do so. I did start the project on my own. And, since no written or verbal agreement was ever made to transfer copyright over to my employer, I question whether they can claim that they now own the extended version of the project. Also, the whole project relies on GPL libraries, and without those libraries it would be useless. Can they still claim copyright and prevent me from publishing the source code even though it is derived from GPL software?" Some early commenters on the submission pointed out that it matters whether the libraries were licensed under the LGPL vs. the GPL.
Re:GPL Violation? (Score:5, Insightful)
no GPL violation if they do not distribute. what are your grounds for suggesting this is a GPL violation ?
Talk to a lawyer (Score:2, Insightful)
A lawyer will be able to help you.
What you need to take away from all this is the same simple advice Homer gave Bart. "Never try"
All you gain from trying to make this software GPL is a lot of heartache and lost time. In the worst case, you can lose a lot of money to lawyers and ultimately the whole source base and copyright.
Was it worth it?
Lawyer time? (Score:3, Insightful)
Even though I want to release my code to the public I don't know whether I have the legal right to do so.
That sounds like "you need to talk to a lawyer" material.
IANAL, but my guess is that if it's in your contract, you'll probably need to demonstrate that you weren't aware of that at the time you signed the contract in order to keep copyright (or control of licensing) on your work. However, given that they hired you to develop a GPL product, it seems silly that any extended code produced is not also GPL licensed.
Short term career (Score:3, Insightful)
Location is an issue that might come up with the GPL. Different countries would interpret the GPL differently. Just because it's been tested (more or less) in the states doesn't mean that it's been tested elsewhere. Given the time of your posting, I'm assuming you're somewhere outside of the U.S. and therefore the requirements of the GPL aren't necessarily clear.
I had a similar project at one point. I would never use the GPL as I believe in free software, so I use a modified BSD license. But when my employer decided they didn't want to continue making my code open, I wrote it over (it was only 15,000 lines, so it took a few weekends) and BSD'd it. It's still not as complete as the original, but it's functional enough to be useful to others now.
I recommend that you keep in mind that you work for your employer and if you feel your employer has violated your trust, you're welcome to leave. Additionally, if you violate their trust, they're welcome to release you from your agreement.
While it may be legally OK to release the code as GPL, it doesn't mean that your employer will agree with your decision and may decide that they'd prefer to work with someone who's more attuned to their wants and needs.
Re:Yes, but it may not mean what you think it mean (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd also like to note that I work for a large company that knowingly pays me to do exactly this all day. I write proprietary software using GPL libraries and such all day. We just don't distribute it.
That could come back to bite them quite badly. What if one department gets spun off as an independent business at some point in the future? Not solving this problem up front could create some hidden costs for your employer.
Re:Yes, but it may not mean what you think it mean (Score:3, Insightful)
That could come back to bite them quite badly. What if one department gets spun off as an independent business at some point in the future? Not solving this problem up front could create some hidden costs for your employer.
One thing to remember if you don't worry about the source code itself, but about obligations that you might enter into by using GPL'd software: By distributing executable + source code _together_ you have done everything that the GPL demands from you. Nobody has any rights towards you at all. So if you spin off another company, give them the executable and the source code.
If you don't do it that way, then suddenly _anybody_ in the world has the right to request source code from you.
Re:It was GPL before, so is GPL now (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhhh.. "it depends" is always the answer.. but in general work for hire is owned by the employer. And as for the first two situations you described, they're identical. Whether Alice is extending MySQL-commercial-license vs MySQL-GPL-license is irrelevant, Bob owns the work Alice does. I think you're as confused as the other people I've replied to, and I wish people on Slashdot would learn to read the entire thread before replying..... but I'll repeat. If I extend a GPL licensed work, I own my own work, it is not licensed under the GPL until I do so explicitly. It does not automatically become GPL licensed.
Re:GPL Violation? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I think he'd be going at this from the human angle.
It's a university?
The careers of Academics are generally heavily based on publishing the work they've done with their names attached.
For coders it's less explicit but having a large body of published work can also be important and academics generally get the idea of open source.
Talk to some senior academics you get on well with.
Talk about it the same way as you would if the university were not allowing you to publish research done on uni time.
They may not like the idea and weigh in on your side which would be a big help.
Worst case you don't really get anywhere.
Best case some bullish professor will arrange things so your work gets published.
You may end up with some academics name on the code along with yours.
Storming about and arguing about who owns the code is very unlikely to do any good since you probably don't and the GPL doesn't help you on that score.
Allies in the right place are worth a thousand lawyers.
Re:GPL Violation? (Score:2, Insightful)
He owns what he wrote before he started.
After he started it's likely that anything he did belongs to the university.
The GPL has zero effect on this unless the uni ever want to distribute it externally.
Re:Yes, but it may not mean what you think it mean (Score:1, Insightful)
Pardon my bluntness, but that's relativist bullshit. The code is written by an employee of a company which has no intention of publishing its own software under an open source license. I emphasize the ownership because it is not the programmer's code at any time. He does not write free software which he licenses to the company, which then merely chooses not to redistribute. He's an employee of the company, so the program is effectively the company's creation. If you write a program on your own time intending to sell binaries and to never show the source to anyone, are you writing open source software? No, the act of publishing the source with the rights to make changes to it is what makes software open source. In fact, all software is created as proprietary software as a result of copyright law.
Re:GPL Violation? (Score:5, Insightful)
1) He didn't discuss the university's position on this and get it made clear in the contract in the first place, and
2) He came to Slashdot for legal advice.
It's been shown countless times that Slashdotters in general *do not understand how law works*. They assume that one can deduce how the law works logically, and that's how it is.
Well, it's not. The only way to know about how the law works is to learn how it works. It's not always logical, it's not always the way it *should* be (in a reasonable *or* in a logical world). I've actually been criticised for pointing out the latter, as if pointing out that the law doesn't work in that idealised way meant I endorsed its flaws (which is another stupid thing to do, but Slashdotters aren't always the detached paragons of common-sense that some would like to see themselves as).
Even if they understand the GPL in isolation, this case requires one to know how this relates to employment laws, jurisdictions, "works for hire", blah blah...
Bottom line- being an expert in IT and related fields does not qualify you to answer legal questions. IANAL, and neither are the vast majority of those contributing to this thread. And the problem is sorting out those who really *do* know what they're talking about from those who simply think they do.
Re:Yes, but it may not mean what you think it mean (Score:3, Insightful)
You can try, then when you go to court, the judge will smack you in the face for trying to sneak around your legal obligations.
When you write something on your own with clear knowledge of the requirement for your employment, using knowledge you gained FROM your employment, you have a really HARD time trying to convince the court that it really was 'your' work.
The government and courts have been dealing with people far sneakier than you for several thousand years.
Re:Yes, but it may not mean what you think it mean (Score:1, Insightful)
Can they still claim copyright and prevent me from publishing the source code even though it is derived from GPL software?
Anyone can CLAIM copyright to anything.
Preventing you from publishing the source would only be accomplished by a judge ruling in a court case. It's that simple.
Ownership of copyright can be determined by a judge, too.
That said, if the company knowingly employed you to work on a GPL'd product, their ownership of the copyright may be more difficult to present to a judge.
Re:GPL Violation? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:GPL Violation? (Score:3, Insightful)