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I wrote a program for my boss. How legal is to to write the program again and make it FOSS? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/programming

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I told my boss I had an idea for a program that could improve efficiency across much of the business, and he let me build it on company time. In the long term, he wanted to be able to sell it to other companies. However, the program never got implemented due to personnel mismanagement, and I'd rather be able to post it on my github under a free licence so I can use it as a resume item, and at least someone would have the chance to actually use it. It's all still in my head, and I could write it again if I wanted. If I do, is it illegal to publish it? What if I write it in a different language? Do I need to change the variable names? I did plenty of research and planning on company time to build it, and it's not like I can research it again, it's all still in my head.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

"Make those parts pluggable/replaceable which would be a good design anyways".

Following best practices = Morally Wrong?
Sure, fren, whatever you say.

The only reason OP might not have done it this way in the first place would have been to save the company worrying about licensing, or getting shitty with OP about not using enough orignal/proprietary code to ensure lock-in with future clients ... is THAT somehow morally superior in your book?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I just mean that the amount of subterfuge that's been suggested in this thread suggests these people feel that something's wrong. You don't normally have to go to such lengths to hide your identity on GitHub.

Let's be honest, deciding later that code they wrote for someone should be repurposed behind their back is rather underhanded. And making it open source rather than spinning their own company doesn't make it more palatable.