Evil ideas

[Alexandre Dulaunoy]

On Thu, 21 Mar 2002, John Tapsell wrote:

> I was just reading on /. about that perl monk who released some code under 
> the GPL, then his employees claimed ownership, and yanked it back.
> 
> 
>  I was wondering - if an evil company got someone to unofficially write some 
> GPL code and that person then released it to the community.  Then wait say a 
> year for everyone to become dependant on it.  Then the evil company yanks it 
> back, revokes the GPL license claiming it was illegal in the first place, 
> then charges lots of money for the program.
>   This is very similiar to the perlmonk case, except I hope it doesn't have 
> the evil purposes..

I don't know if it possible. But in the majority of time (read : in most 
European country), the employee has more right than the employer. 
Sometimes that could be help the employee to get right on his works when, 
for example, the working contract is too strict (so the contract became 
null). 

So the best way, I think, is to add a special clause in his working 
contract regarding Free Software. 
I have made one, sometimes ago, and it's in use in Belgium and Luxembourg 
in multiple companies ;-) (I got some feedback). 
http://www.foo.be/librecontrat/ 

I don't know fully the legal aspect around that but it seems to work. 

If somebody wants to make a translation in english and with correct 
application of the law for each contry. don't hesitate.

hope this helps.

alx


-- 
Alexandre Dulaunoy			adulau at conostix.com
					http://www.conostix.com/