Date: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 07:46:52 -0700
From: Larry McVoy <lm@bitmover.com>
To: Anuradha Ratnaweera <anuradha@ratnaweera.net>
Cc: LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: Contributing to the kernel while being employed
Message-ID: <20030730144652.GA22446@work.bitmover.com>
Mail-Followup-To: Larry McVoy <lm@work.bitmover.com>,
	Anuradha Ratnaweera <anuradha@ratnaweera.net>,
	LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
References: <1059574407.1759.26.camel@anuradha>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
In-Reply-To: <1059574407.1759.26.camel@anuradha>
User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i
Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org
Content-Length: 1218
Lines: 22

On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 10:13:27AM -0400, Anuradha Ratnaweera wrote:
> Before working for a commercial organization, one usually has to sign a
> contract which makes all the work done during the period of employment
> (including innovations, "hobby" coding done during "after hours")
> copyrighted by the employer.  This introduces various problems when one
> wishes to do open source development, especially as a hobby.

Unless you are someone that sticks out from the crowd of engineers, you
are basically in trouble.  If your employer can't easily replace you
then you can negotiate a different employee contract.  This is quite 
common for a certain level of engineers.  I've done it and it is not
easy but one tip: describe the open source work as "pro bono work
for the community at large" and at least the lawyers will have a clue,
that's more or less their idea of open source.
-- 
---
Larry McVoy              lm at bitmover.com          http://www.bitmover.com/lm
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/