The best way to keep your code after you leave an employer is to make it public to begin with. The key is to get permission to make your library open source fr

The best way to keep your code after you leave an employer is to make it public to begin with. The key is to get permission to make your library open source from the get-go. I've done it before and it worked out very well: People who did not work for my employer contributed patches that made it better. Essentially, we got people to work for us for free! How can you say no to that? If there's nothing proprietary (i.e. trade secrets) you're really better off making it open source. Many employers seem to think that every line of code their developers write is 100% proprietary but they're really doing themselves a disservice with this attitude. That widget library your developers wrote? It is probably less than 1% of your code base and even less of a priority for them. Wouldn't it be better to just put it on the web under an open source license and hope for the best? If your competitors get their hands on it then... What, exactly? They might improve it for you?