was criminal use of linux [not] -now: ownership

[Dave Ihnat]

Once, long ago--actually, on Thu, Aug 02, 2012 at 07:26:02PM +1000--Roger (arelem at bigpond.com) said:
> Er... nobody can take ownership over work that you have written,
> Your work is your own, regardless of whether they own the language
> you write it in or not.

True, unless:

  1.  You contractually grant it to another.  It's quite common to either
      take contracts or sign employment agreements that grant everything
	  you produce for a client or employer as a "work for hire".
	  
  2.  It is also quite common to sign an agreement, usually as a clause in
      the general contract or employment agreement, that you will cooperate
	  in the transfer of any patents awarded in the course of your work to
	  your contractor or employer.

> Where is it stated that Micros[hi]t owns C++? when did this happen?

Absolutely bogus.  C++ was developed by Bjarne Stroustrup while at BTL.

> (though licensing of compiled binaries can be interesting depending
> on your compiler license - in exactly the same way some people call
> GPL infectious).

It's more common that linking in copyrighted binaries will contaminate your
code.  This has not, however, been a common restriction since the GNU
library wars.

> Ad for ownership, I think it depends on circumstances. I have heard
> instances of when one writes a work while employed by or under
> contract to a company then they do not own their work, the company
> does, even if the work was done on unpaid holidays or at home during
> unpaid after hours.

This used to be a common restrictive clause in employment contracts.
I haven't seen such tried in a mort of years.  HOWEVER, make sure not
to sign any such agreement, and don't ever use company resources or time
to do any development you want to keep.  (And, of course, never use any
information you could only have gotten from your employer or contractee.)

> If, say a programmer or developer is employed by a company or
> organisation and they write code and say develop a site in their own
> time, using open source applications, and contribute the whole thing
> to Open source or under GPL, etc, can the company/organisation stake
> a claim?

Only if you signed an agreement stating such.

> Also, if a programmer writes code snippets and contributes snippets
> to a larger unit, for instance, a kernel or app. From the above
> comment, he still owns the code snippet.

You do, unless you release ownership.

> If a vast number of snippets from a vast number of coders are
> donated free of encumbrance to enhance a kernel or app, how does
> that make the whole (Linux) responsible for copyright violation when
> no one entity owns it?

None of the snippets that are unencumbered are in trouble, _unless_ they
violate a copyright.

> I'm probably waffling on here but it seems that there's more going
> on under the carpet than we may be aware of with MS. Mentioning over
> 200 instances yet I see no one discussing or displaying code
> comparisons to show that it is true. Surely it is incumbent on the
> complaintant to provide proof.

Not unless and until they actually take action.  There's no advantage to
Microsoft in actually providing evidence of what they believe has been
infringed.  If they do so, then developers can take steps to rewrite
and remove the offending code.  If they don't, everything is suspect
of being tainted, and (they can hope) corporations are leery of using
potentially tainted code without indemnification.

Cheers,
--
	Dave Ihnat
	dihnat at dminet.com