Re: SCO identifies code?

["Paul Smith" <pausmith@nortelnetworks.com>]

%% Bijan Soleymani <bijan@psq.com> writes:

  bs> This makes a lot of sense. I mean if the FSF hired you to write a
  bs> GPL program, they wouldn't want you to release a proprietary
  bs> version of it after you quit working for them.

Actually this would not be a problem since the FSF never "hires" anyone
to write code with that kind of employment contract.  Whenever you write
GNU code it's always copyright to you: before the FSF will accept it as
part of GNU you must assign copyright to them.  _BUT_, when you do they
always give you back a license to use the code in any way you wish,
including incorporating it into other, proprietary programs or releasing
it under other licenses.

Regardless, as long as you rewrote it from scratch, without copying the
GPL'd code, then it's not copyright infringement.  The problem is
_PROVING_ you wrote it from scratch.  If you've been exposed to the code
and your code comes out looking the same then there's an assumption that
you've (at least subconciously) copied the code.  Only if you can show
you've never been exposed to the original are you safe.

  bs> Or another example, Microsoft has said they will stop supporting
  bs> outlook express. It's dead and gone. Now imagine all the guys who
  bs> worked on it decided to GPL the program.

I think you're missing Alex's point.  He was not saying it was bad that
he couldn't take the code he wrote for some company and do anything he
wanted with it (at least that's not what I think he was saying).

He's saying that, even though he no longer has that code anymore, if he
were to rewrite, from scratch, without referencing the old code,
something that did the same thing, his employer would have a case about
it.


Note that in the U.S., at least, there are laws protecting people
related to this: there's an expiration on this kind of thing.
Otherwise, you could never switch jobs to another employer in the same
field of computing and work on similar systems, because you'd be
infringing on your original employer's copyright!

-- 
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 Paul D. Smith <psmith@nortelnetworks.com>   HASMAT--HA Software Mthds & Tools
 "Please remain calm...I may be mad, but I am a professional." --Mad Scientist
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