Re: Releasing software sponsored by an employer
Justin Pryzby writes:
> On Wed, Nov 02, 2005 at 09:23:40PM +0100, Arnoud Engelfriet wrote:
>> John Morrissey wrote:
>> > I'm wondering what kind of documentation we should have that explicitly
>> > authorizes me to release this software (copyright still held by the company)
>> > to the public under a DFSG compliant license.
> IMHO it would be very nice if they could give you a PGP message
> confirming what the GPL trailer has:
>
> Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
> `Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
>
> 1 April 1989
> Ty Coon, President of Vice
The obvious alternative is for the company to retain copyright and
produce a signed message that they license the code under the XYZZY
license (some particular DFSG-free license that the company likes).
The signature could be on a single piece of paper, a digital signature
on a copy of the code that incorporates the license terms, etc.
That disclaimer of copyright is more applicable to software that an
employee produces in his or her free time, and should rarely be used
when the employee wrote the program as a job function.
Michael Poole
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