Re: {bb} justification for releasing code back to bb

[Sean MacGuire <sean@MacLawran.CA>]

Todd Jimenez wrote:
> 
> help!
> 
> I've been bitten by the "don't release company code" bug.  I just had a
> conversation w/ my manager about releasing custom bb mods out to the list
> (i.e. event hack, bb-memory.sh, etc...).  he's behind sharing source code,
> but doesn't think that he can justify it to managment above him.  now, I
> know that this has got to be a fairly common problem with any of the
> collaborative project out there, so my questions is:
> 
>         how have people dealt with this in the past?

Whatever happens, get it in writing, and see if you can get a firm
company policy on this.  In fact, some people make sure (as part of
their employment contract) that they can give back to whatever open
source projects they code for.

Ultimately if you are an employee who created this on company time, 
then it belongs to the company and they decide what to do with it.  
If they want to hang on to it, that's up to them.

>         what's the best way to proceed?

Depends on the license of the project you're working on, actually.
If it's a GNU-type project, you have to release it under the GNU
license :(

Under the BB license, you can release it under whatever license your
company decides on, open source, proprietary, whatever.  They own the
copyright and the code.

In fact, there's no reason you can't set up a download page for the 
code from the company site to make sure everyone knows who deserves
the credit for the work done... they can make the code available 
under whatever terms they want, including commercial.  That should 
make the legal people feel better...

>         what justifications/business cases should I use and/or have 
> succeded in the past?

The business case would be the same one that allowed you to implement
BB in the first place:

	* How much have they saved by implementing BB instead of
	  purchasing a commercial product with similar features?
	* How much time have *you* saved by having BB around?  I
	  figured that out to be roughly 1 hour per server per month
	  not including the time I saved by fixing things before 
	  they exploded.

If you make your code available, you have the benefit of many eyes 
glaring at it, making comments, and helping make it better.  As for
your company, this is called "free labor", since everyone ends up
with a better product.

So obviously your company has gotten some benefits from using BB, 
so perhaps giving a little something back would be a nice thing to
do.

More importantly, allowing you to release the code you wrote is 
liable to keep you happy, since *you* essentially saved them all 
this money in the first place.  Hopefully they understand that.
Likewise I hope they understand the absolute necessity of keeping
the staff happy, since it's *so* easy to change jobs!

If that's not enough, then try to figure out precisely what 
they're afraid of;

* Would releasing this code lose them a competitive advantage?  
* Are they afraid of being liable for something?
* Are they afraid of maybe losing "potential" revenues?
* Is it just against their principles?
* Or have they just never done it before?

Good luck.
-- 
Sean MacGuire, Reality Engineer               sean@MacLawran.ca
The Big Brother Ministry of Truth      http://maclawran.ca/sean
icbm --> 45'31.06N-73'35.19W                    +1 514 996 4638
              "Looking down the barrel of another day"
--
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