Amy - I understand your situation, and I think that all of the advice offered here has been (basically) helpful. But at the end of the day, I would consult with a lawyer who specializes in either employment law or IP law...
GB, Bubba From: Amy Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 6:23 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [flexcoders] Re: OOP and Work for Hire --- In [email protected], "Doug McCune" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Typed code is what you are paid to deliver. That is what the client is > buying. When the client pays you you are selling those digital lines of > code. > > I just wrote a book for wiley. I cannot copy and paste any of the prose that > I wrote and post it on my blog. It belongs to wiley. I sold it to them (for > almost nothing, but that's beside the point). Yes, I can take the knowledge > I gained while writing that book and write completely new tutorials that I > post on my blog (although a non-compete prohibits me from writing a > competitive book). But the instant I copy and paste something I am breaking > the legal contract that I signed. > > The original question was about taking the exact code that was created for > one client and using it in another project (either for a client or as open > source code for the community). I don't think there's much of a legal gray > area here. Yes, everyone agrees that the knowledge and techniques that you > gain while writing code are yours and can often be used in other projects. > But that is not at all the same as saying it's ok to copy a class or chunks > of code verbatim. Actually, the question was about signing a work for hire agreement and what other options there might be. It looks like the client is open to negotiation on this issue. After all, the client has already benefitted from code that I've shared with the community. Interestingly, the code I shared was created specifically for the presentation they attended. The client I have done most of my Flex work for doesn't really care about sharing snippits so long as I don't hand over his whole system. But the code I did for him was too detailed and specific for the top level view I was giving in 70 minutes. It may be that I never share, for instance, the exact VO that I use for driving a multiple choice question. But I'd like to know that if I want to base example code on stuff I do for this client that I don't put myself in legal jeopardy. -Amy
