somewhat related: at one job that was working with GPL software, i managed to get them to add a provision into my contract that stated that all code i wrote at

somewhat related: at one job that was working with GPL software, i managed to get them to add a provision into my contract that stated that all code i wrote at the company would be published under the GPL. that way the company still owned my code but i would be allowed to take it and reuse it, and potentially do what your teammate did.