Copyrigth assignment from Sergei Gavrikov

[Daniel Morris]

On Wed, Aug 01, 2007 at 07:39:37AM +0200, Uwe Kindler wrote:
> Hello Sergei,
> 
> 
> ----->
> >That (my ports) was done just for fun and
> > in those days I did use my own 2-3 weekends for that. So far, I have no
> > time to expand the Olimex LPC-X2294 HAL's stuff. I'm sorry.
> <-------
> 
> If you did those ports in your spare time then you don't need a 
> copyright assignment from your employer. 

This statement is wrong. Employers tend to cover themselves with blanket
legalese to take ownership of all ideas and expressions of these ideas;
as do most academic institutions. The only way to be certain about this
is to dust off your contract of employment and read it; but think about
it pragmatically - what would happen if one had a "brain wave" in the 
shower or driving home from work? What if the invention weren't directly
related to your current project, could it have been inspired by the 
training your employer had given you, or via access to restricted
materials, or ideas from other employees in the lift? No sane employer
wants to go down a costly route of arguing each corner case on merit,
so they put blanket language in their employment contracts and let 
each worker make a decision to join, or not join, when they are offered
the position.

> I also do my whole eCos devolopment in my spare time (therefore I
> needed more than 3 months to wrote the CAN driver :O). Therfore I
> signed the copyright assignment directly.
> 
> I think if your ports are spare time work then you could sign a 
> copyright assignment directly instead of asking your employer - please 
> correct me if I'm wrong Andrew.

Many employers are reasonable enough to make a distinction between
"work" activities and those clearly delineated, but that is a decision
that the employer has to take *and* document in writing. 

Many employers see great value in having their engineering staff
participate in public and very often benefit greatly from the experience
and practical skills that engineers polish through (voluntary)
involvement. Many companies are happy making contributions that don't
undermine their own core business. However, it could be a very
unpleasant situation for an individual to give away code that a
company/institution owns and for the company/institution to later find
out and pursue the individual on the basis of breaching confidentiality
or leaking trade-secrets or divesting company property etc.

The eCos maintainers have to be vigilant in accepting contributions 
in their role of protecting eCos and cannot accept contributions where
the "rights & title" may be in doubt. Unfortunately there are many
"dangling" contributions that have been posted to the various eCos
mailing lists that cannot be integrated until a valid copyright
assignment is processed. Companies, such as those found in the Product
Showcase at <http://www.ecoscentric.com/ecos/examples.shtml> wouldn't
build products based on eCos if the purity of the source base
was in doubt. 

 Daniel

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