4 ms·

Where do you draw the line and tell your employer? Some small repos you make that have nothing to do your company's business can be no-brainers... But I someti

Where do you draw the line and tell your employer? Some small repos you make that have nothing to do your company's business can be no-brainers... But I sometimes wonder, wait a sec, yes this thing would make a great open source repo but I am giving away code I'm being paid to write that I had no right to give away? And asking, hey can I open source this is a mess. Sometimes no answer, sometime no timely answer, sometimes just a no.

ggm 2y ago
Even for not for profits, releasing code has implications. Wiring down liability. We had to review everything with directorate, even expecting the answer "yes of course"
simonw 2y ago
If your employer paid you to write code, they have to give permission to open source it. It's useful to understand the rules regarding code you write for side-projects. Different employers have different policies there.
- andrewfromx 2y ago
  "Once I realized that I started open sourcing everything, like pretty much every piece of code I’ve written in the past six years, I’ve open sourced purely as a defense against me losing access to that code in the future." sounds like this guy is just saying YOLO and releasing everything without permission?
  - simonw 2y ago
    When I needed to get permission from an employer I got it. Most of the time I was self-employed.
- andrewfromx 2y ago
  also let me ask this: if your employer paid you to write project A, and while you are writing it you include lots of already existing open source projects everything is going normal so far. Then you notice you need one specific thing and there is no open source project out there yet that does it. So you make it. And then go back to project A and include another open source project that just happens to be written by you. Project A would not work without this new repo you made. So they did paid you for it. And yet how is your repo any different from all the others already in the project?
  - simonw 2y ago
    That's the kind of edge case you need to talk to them about. How flexible they'll be about that kind of thing depends entirely on them - I've been lucky about that kind of thing in the past.

ggm 2y ago

Even for not for profits, releasing code has implications. Wiring down liability. We had to review everything with directorate, even expecting the answer "yes of course"

simonw 2y ago

If your employer paid you to write code, they have to give permission to open source it. It's useful to understand the rules regarding code you write for side-projects. Different employers have different policies there.

andrewfromx 2y ago
"Once I realized that I started open sourcing everything, like pretty much every piece of code I’ve written in the past six years, I’ve open sourced purely as a defense against me losing access to that code in the future." sounds like this guy is just saying YOLO and releasing everything without permission?
- simonw 2y ago
  When I needed to get permission from an employer I got it. Most of the time I was self-employed.
andrewfromx 2y ago
also let me ask this: if your employer paid you to write project A, and while you are writing it you include lots of already existing open source projects everything is going normal so far. Then you notice you need one specific thing and there is no open source project out there yet that does it. So you make it. And then go back to project A and include another open source project that just happens to be written by you. Project A would not work without this new repo you made. So they did paid you for it. And yet how is your repo any different from all the others already in the project?
- simonw 2y ago
  That's the kind of edge case you need to talk to them about. How flexible they'll be about that kind of thing depends entirely on them - I've been lucky about that kind of thing in the past.