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I have done this for 7 years. Most of my work is on LedgerSMB. The simple answer is yes. Here is more information as to how to do this and so forth.
Open Source Development is Pay Up Front for Development
With software licenses you are compensating a developer in arrears for development work. Microsoft spends vast amounts of money developing their ...
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Disclaimer: Always read contracts you sign multiple times. Regardless of whether or not a contract is enforceable, be sure you do not agree to anything you disagree with.
Do you need your employer's permission to submit a pull request to contribute your change back into the project's public repo?
Nope. this is a straight up "no", regardless. You are ...
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There are many variables.
In short words, you have to know how to licence your work and this should happen when you write the contract with the client.
Of course, there are many aspects of the problem you should consider:
Does the work contain parts over which your client has full copyright (logo, text, colors, design, source code, trademarks)?
What can ...
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Yes. It's exceptionally unethical in most instances unless it's agreed upon prior to the work being performed.
In all probability the only reason this "program" was created was due to the client paying you to create it. Any client paying you only to then have you turn around and release, the product they paid for, for free is going to be very, very, very ...
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In our line of work we sell two things:
Our work (outright) and the rights to copyright it, OR
The right to use the work (a license), and retain the copyright.
We use the first approach when it's unlikely that we can market the same work to other interested parties because of its uniqueness. We hand it off. The client can use it, or flush it down the ...
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Logo and any visual material (videos, manuals) provided by such company will be surely protected by copyright law. You should ask them on what conditions you can use such materials (their logo, their videos, their manuals or excerpts from videos and manuals).
By the way if you dont have MS certification in there areas, they might be reluctant to give you ...
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This sort of behavior is a known problem, see Privacy Rights Clearinghouse 'Resume Database Nightmare: Job Seeker Privacy at Risk'
One solution for the future may be to put a copyright notice on your CV, as recommended by
'Let the resume wars begin' - Ask the Headhunter (Nick Corcodilos). Then you can use a simple DMCA takedown notice. (To my knowledge, ...
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Truth is.. even a contract won't protect you if you knowingly do something illegal.
Imagine this... a woman hires you to steal her friends car.... you make her sign a contract that she is actually the thief and you are released from all liability and are only doing what you are hired to do. You steal the car... do you think the contract saves you from any ...
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TL;DR: I don't think that this would be OK. The best course of action would be to make your own designs (even if they're for example sites) and use those for your "samples". Your clients would get a great feel for how you design, which is what you want to showcase.
Let's examine what Fair Use entails:
Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 17 U.S.C. §...
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The application and source code is yours (assuming you wrote it) unless your contract specifically states this is "a work for hire". If you have no contract, the application and source code is yours. The U.S. copyright law has been this way since 1978, further clarified in early 1980s. Prior to 1978, the US copyright law was as described in answers posted ...
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It is not "exceptionally unethical" as previously answered. Ethics has nothing to do with it as it is a matter of property. Just because a client pays you to develop a program for them does not automatically convey to them some ethical right of ownership to the work. After all it is the fruit of your labor. The property ownership is all that matters and ...
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TL;DR
Is it appropriate that I make him sign an agreement to this effect?
NO; there's absolutely no need. One may ask; for what purpose? You CANNOT be truly protected for premeditated acts, not even with a written agreement!
If he were facing any legal action, would it extend to me?
If and only if you delivered further on the project after having ...
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No it is not OK
If you need to show samples of things you can do, but have not yet procured any clients, you should design your own static wireframe mockups (or live sample sites) to show people what you can do.
Your clients will send you to other sites they like as part of the specification process, because you will ask them "what site designs on the ...
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Welcome to the world of freelancing :).
To reply: Yes that is normal what they ask and we face that every day.
Now, what can you do about it? Options are:
Give them full copyright to the code or give them ownership of the code. Most of us do that.
Refuse to give code since it's you intellectual property. Some guys do that as well and this is especially ...
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Yes it's possible, especially in this case where the freelance programmer makes money by creating custom products. Since the product is heavily customized for a particular customer, the customer can distribute it, but it will be of less benefit to other businesses.
In the case of a more generic product, if it is open source then one a customer buys it they ...
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How to learn copyright law....
As a long-term open source software developer, I have to say one never really stops learning copyright law. There are however some very basic things to be aware of. There are even questions which have not been definitively answered, such as whether or when #include <headerfile.h> can ever lead to the copyright holder ...
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I have seen multiple examples of it being done, agencies or people linking to the previous work self hosted - but as courtesy just ask the client first if you can put it up on your code account as proof of work.
Also something to consider - if you don't show that you got permission to put it on GitHub, prospective clients could be turned away.
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There are two aspects to this: leverage what you have now, and minimize damage in the future.
Leveraging what you have now includes things like contacting the recruiters you work with, letting them know to be on the lookout for the problem, and that if they have any concerns to please verify details. This way the recruiters you work with can vouch for you....
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In fact, unless contracts specify otherwise, you own the copyright in almost (fashion is one exception in the USA; all clothing exists completely outside the bounds of all US copyright legislation) anything you create immediately upon "putting pen to paper," so-to-speak. This is true even if you never publish your creation.
If you want to pursue litigation ...
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I'm not sure what the question is. Are those 4 things reasonable? Yeah, of course. Also, it sounds a bit like you're being asked to WFH contract to work on an open source (or "to be open sourced at some future date") project, which seems like two very different copyright models. Work on open source code anonymously? No thanks.
I've never run into a WFH ...
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Legality of providing freelance support for a product which my current employer previously supported
It would likely depend on your current contract of employment. Your contract (assuming you have one) may restrict the amount of work you do outside your main employment, for example.
If your employer is abandoning a product, the non-compete clause may not apply as they are no longer in that particular business.
As Canadian Luke says in the comments, you ...
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The question of whether you retain copyright or transfer/assign copyright to your client is more of a business question and a question of how you prefer to work.
Many clients don't negotiate copyright ownership especially when issues regarding delivery of work and payment terms take greater precedence to both parties. If you educate your clients about ...
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My contract states I have the right to display work for self-promotional purposes unless it is a work-for-hire situation or otherwise requested.
In addition, in any non-work-for-hire situation you own the rights to everything except the final deliverables unless you've agreed otherwise.
Now that doesn't mean you own the rights to the Coca-Cola logo, but ...
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You should take the routine to make any client (friends, family, or not) sign a well done contract (you can search here to find many posts about that) that contains also a releasing agreement on any material that he will give you or that he will use independently on your sites.
In this case, I'm not a lawyer but I don't think that you can be involved in ...
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This depends on the contract you're working under (you're using a contract, right?), but generally with a work-for-hire gig, the source code you produce is also part of what you're selling.
That said, you can't sell 'experience', so in six months when you come across a similar problem, you can say "Oh, I solved this this way a while ago," and write a new ...
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There is no way you can make this happen the way you want it. Do you have a contact at this company? How will you get in touch with the right people? If it is indeed a major web services company you would be lucky to get the idea on the right level to begin with.
You also assume that simply offering them the idea will make them all "Wow we need this!". ...
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Ideas by themselves are worthless.
You can not sell just an idea. Whoever you are trying to sell it to doesn't know if your idea really is of any value to them. The only way to convince them that your idea is valuable to them is to tell them about your idea. But then they know the idea and don't need you anymore.
There is no good way to protect your idea ...
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You should never post sensitive source code publicly. I wouldn't pay you if I knew you'd share my project to the rest of the world.
However, you may briefly write a description of the project on your blog and some screenshots.
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