

Advice about open sourcing corporate software project - ofthewolf

For the last year, the engineering department where I work has been developing an internal software project with the intent of open sourcing it.  I built the original alpha of the project before my employment and my employer adopted it on a handshake agreement that it would be open sourced when ready... yes, I don&#x27;t want to hear about the reliability of a handshake. The company rebuilt it using internal resources to get it up to production standards and then released it on publicly on GitHub.  It was only live for a few hours before it was pulled due to &quot;legal concerns&quot; after some execs who were not previously aware of it got wind.<p>Now, I am told that the company has agreed to release it contingent on approval from legal.  But here is the snag, they have limited our budget to engage legal, so effectively I only have one shot.<p>Any advice or insight? Help!
======
grabeh
Presumably there are legitimate concerns from the company relating to
liability over third party use of the software. There may also be issues over
third party commercialisation.

Firstly, what was the licence if any attached to the software when it was
first released via Github, if any?

Secondly, if it was one of the frequently used open source licences there
would be a general provision in there relating to exclusion of liability. Also
depending on the licence commercialisaition may be restricted.

I would say overall you first need to get a handle on what the concerns were
and also how appraised legal are of the situation. Once you've done this you
can then take steps to identify a suitable licence which would address those
concerns. Presumably if budget is limited they don't want to be in a position
where they are drafting a licence from scratch. As mentioned you can help in
this by taking a suitable licence to them.

In any event, good luck! Feel free to email me of you have any questions
although I should point out that the suggestion to go to EFF/FSF is an
excellent one.

------
maaku
Ask the FSF, EFF, or some other team of lawyers for advice?

