>I'm writing with a somewhat specific question. I'm a non-developing >employee of a Missouri software company. In my spare time, I do >develop, >though, and am about to release a program of substantial size as free >software. I'm concerned about my employer's finding out about this and >using it to gain "ownership" over the program, seeing as how I wrote it >while under their employ. Is there anything I can do to retain my >copyright so that I can release it as free software, or does my >employer >have legal claim over my program? >
You need help from software freedom conservancy. The lawyers. I just listened to their podcast: 'free as in freedom' refering to the contract you sign on joining mentioned in other responses. Free as in Freedom: 0x5E: Conservancy's ContractPatch Initiative http://faif.us/cast/2016/nov/01/0x5E/ There are links there to the audio oggcast and to the blog posts which might be worth a read. https://sfconservancy.org/blog/?tag=ContractPatch It might be worth joining their mailing list as well. Good luck. -- -- Andres (he/him/his) Ham United Group Richmond Makerlabs
