Timeline for Contract: open source and "prior inventions"
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 4, 2016 at 22:30 | comment | added | User | @PaulD actually this is a question we had at the beginning of the project, on one side it can be seen as unfair the company alone paying for an open source project of someone else, but on the other if it was not for this, I'd not be working on the project at all. And "selling" generic features doesn't make sense, this not only damages my repository but also the fork of the company, which gets increasingly out of sync with the main repo and it becomes difficult to merge fixes, upgrades, etc. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 22:05 | comment | added | User | @PaulD nah the thing was that we agreed from the beginning that I'd own the improvements - why would this be differently? This is super generic stuff and if I'd implement it again I'd do it exactly like it is now, it's stupid. Plus it's also partly good for the company to publish this to get possible input and fixes from other people. Of course custom things which I do in their app and not in my library belongs to them. I'm also working for a slightly lower rate than usual because of this. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 21:23 | comment | added | PaulD | All I mean is say your repo was an online shop, and they had you make the categories multi level for them. You could not then use that code on your repo. But in the future, as an unoriginal improvement, you could recode a multilevel category system for the repo, But it would have to be sufficiently different, which it probably would anyway, given that the company would want something specific, probably not general enough for a repo audience. I would be careful though, and probably create a trail of demand from users that you could point to as independent external requests. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 21:14 | comment | added | PaulD | Again, that all seems quite normal to me. You can't expect them to pay for improvements and then for you to go and publish them as part of your open source script. Those improvements are no longer yours to publish. If that was your intention, you might get in trouble. If as you say they are nothing super special, you have to decide what you do, but I personally would not take the risk. Is that repo more or less important than this work? Is the company likely to check or really care? Or wait six months and then re-code the improvements sufficiently differently. Hard to say without specifics. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 20:53 | comment | added | User | @PaulD uhm, wait, I didn't read the update to the first clause first (it wasn't like this the last time I read it I think). It states actually quite clearly that I give up the rights to improvements of the inventions if it's for the company. Lol? | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 20:38 | comment | added | User | @PaulD to finish this last comment, the features I'm working in while not trivial are also nothing super-special, so I'm not sure why the client would do this, but well, one has to assume worst case when writing agreements. Since you mentioned it, let me edit my question with the exact excerpt of the agreement. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 20:35 | comment | added | User | @PaulD ok I get it, but just to elaborate a bit on this - I'd work for them but it's still my own public repository, which is the "prior invention" - how would be a conflict resolved in such case? ok, I suppose they could say I'm not authorized to publish the features I implemented while working for them. While they still can keep my repo since it's public + the features. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 19:10 | comment | added | PaulD | It all seems pretty standard to me, your prior inventions (libraries, snippets, methods etc) are not the companies, but anything they pay you to do and you do for them are theirs. Given that you have not included the relevant part of the contract I think the answer given is a good one. It does not matter who provides the contract, as Wesley said, it is negotiated until signed by both parties. For smaller companies the contractor would normally provide one, for larger companies they usually will have their own. If you are concerned, then you should seek legal advice from a contract lawyer. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 18:59 | comment | added | User | BTW a small additional question, if you want to answer, who does usually provide the contract? The freelancer or the client? Is there a convention or something for this? | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 18:57 | comment | added | User | Ok, thanks for your response, it's helpful (+1) (also fully agree), but a bit too generic - I'll wait if maybe there's a more specific answer concerning the open source thing. | |
| Sep 4, 2016 at 17:53 | history | answered | Wesley Long | CC BY-SA 3.0 |