On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 1:25 PM, Sudhakar Chandra <[email protected]> wrote: > I don't have a template or resources I can point to. But some things both > employer and employee should consider before embarking on this: > > 1. Is this a brand new, from the ground up project or the open sourcing of > something the company had that was previously closed? The former is > marginally less complex than the latter.
This is a brand new project > 2. Is the project in an area of that the employer is currently involved in? > Is the employer likely to become involved in this area in the next 1|3|5|10 > years? No and No. > 3. Does the employer understand open source? Is employer an active > supporter of open source? Is employer a beneficiary of open source? Yes. Yes and Yes. > 4. Would the employee use any of the employer's resources (computers, > bandwidth, electricity, office space, email address, hosting space, etc.) > in developing the open source software? If not, how would the employee > ensure that they are not using any resources from the employer in building > this software? There is no intent to do so but no way has been proposed to verify that. > 5. Even though employee might be developing the software purely on an > individual basis, there is a chance that the software is perceived to be > from the employer rather than the employee's personal project. The company has has already declared no interest in the project. > 6. What license does the employee plan to use for the project? Is this in > the best interest of the employee? The employer? AGPL. It was selected by the employee so presumably it is in his interest. The company doesn't care really. > 7. What happens if someone sues the employee for the open source software? > Can the employer get sucked into the dispute? The intent is that the company be insulated from this. > 8. What happens to the employer/employee if the software turns out to be > the next What's App or InstaApp? Ensuring clarity on this is one of the goals of this exercise. > Some sort of agreement between the employer and the employee addressing the > details of these would be a good starting step. Exactly -- a template for this was precisely what I was looking for. While my company is supportive it really isn't considered important enough to spend lawyer hours on. We're trying to set a precedent so that there is some boilerplate in place for other people. -- b
