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Unless I managed to completely miss something, I see no mention of the copyright issues that likely ensare a good percentage of those who would otherwise be the

Unless I managed to completely miss something, I see no mention of the copyright issues that likely ensare a good percentage of those who would otherwise be their prime audience. This sounds interesting to me, but having already waded through the issues once on my own, without some serious help resolving the legal aspect of this, the cost of entry is too high for impulse-based participation.

giancarlostoro 8y ago
I'm so confused by what you're saying, do you not understand how software licensing works in regards to copyright? I thought by now its been pretty well understood by the community. The exception being obscurely licensed software.
- ShroudedNight 8y ago
  The problem with copyright is that many of us are subject to broad agreements assigning the ownership of all our programming output to our employers. If we were to contribute to these projects without a clear legal framework in place authorizing us to do so, we open up all parties involved to significant legal risk. If Mozilla had some kind of pre-packaged kit that we could take to our employers for approval, and that once filled out, had a clear scope of authorization, it would go a long way to giving me the courage to try walking the path to contributing again.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    I'm not sure there, I see what you mean now. Thanks for the clarification. I'm not familiar with that case, maybe someone else here on HN would know. Usually most people just don't have to worry about that when contributing to open source. Also depending on the software license, it might trump the supposed claimed copyright of your employer, e.g. GPL code once GPL'd there's no going around it. Or other licenses which revoke your use of their code the second you try to sue. Software licenses are kind of smart in their own regard. Sidenote: I personally would refuse to work for anybody who tries to own code I write outside of work with my own hardware / tools. Thankfully where I work we're very open source friendly, not only do we use open source tooling / OS' but in some cases we contribute back directly where appropriate.
    - robin_reala 8y ago
      Every place that I’ve worked at with a clause like that in the contract doesn’t get to employ me until it’s removed. Usually they can’t understand my objections, and has just been put in there by their lawyers, but it’s always come out eventually.
      - giancarlostoro 8y ago
        It just makes no sense why they add that in to begin with. Glad to know they'd take it out.

giancarlostoro 8y ago

I'm so confused by what you're saying, do you not understand how software licensing works in regards to copyright? I thought by now its been pretty well understood by the community. The exception being obscurely licensed software.

ShroudedNight 8y ago
The problem with copyright is that many of us are subject to broad agreements assigning the ownership of all our programming output to our employers. If we were to contribute to these projects without a clear legal framework in place authorizing us to do so, we open up all parties involved to significant legal risk. If Mozilla had some kind of pre-packaged kit that we could take to our employers for approval, and that once filled out, had a clear scope of authorization, it would go a long way to giving me the courage to try walking the path to contributing again.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  I'm not sure there, I see what you mean now. Thanks for the clarification. I'm not familiar with that case, maybe someone else here on HN would know. Usually most people just don't have to worry about that when contributing to open source. Also depending on the software license, it might trump the supposed claimed copyright of your employer, e.g. GPL code once GPL'd there's no going around it. Or other licenses which revoke your use of their code the second you try to sue. Software licenses are kind of smart in their own regard. Sidenote: I personally would refuse to work for anybody who tries to own code I write outside of work with my own hardware / tools. Thankfully where I work we're very open source friendly, not only do we use open source tooling / OS' but in some cases we contribute back directly where appropriate.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    Every place that I’ve worked at with a clause like that in the contract doesn’t get to employ me until it’s removed. Usually they can’t understand my objections, and has just been put in there by their lawyers, but it’s always come out eventually.
    - giancarlostoro 8y ago
      It just makes no sense why they add that in to begin with. Glad to know they'd take it out.