More and more open-source developers these days are employees of companies, paid to work on open-source projects, rather than independent programmers doing it for fun. The change raises issues for projects, programmers and employers alike.

A number of corporations are moving into the free software arena, and this has resulted in legions of programmers, paid by companies, moving into free software communities, Simon Phipps, chief open source officer at Sun said Friday at FOSS.IN, a conference on free and open-source software in Bangalore, India.

This development has thrown up questions about how open-source developers on corporate payrolls can protect their freedom and rights from the demands of their employers, and resist corporate influences that may run counter to the free software community's interests.

At the conference, an employee of an Indian government lab complained that his employment rules require him to turn in to the company any software developed by him, including what is done outside office hours.

In this context, Danese Cooper, a member of the board of directors of the Open Source Initiative (OSI), who also advises Intel on its open source strategy, dedicated an entire session Friday at the FOSS.IN conference to outlining strategies employees can use to protect their autonomy from the "corporate elephant" that is both powerful and resistant to change.

Historically, companies claimed rights to any software code written by their employees, but there are some changes, for example in California where employee agreements now allow the employee to retain the right to his work outside office hours, according to Cooper.

"Corporations are profit-driven, and are required to do well for their shareholders," Cooper said. To make profits, companies are going to shift their strategies quarterly, and employees may often find that projects they work on are cancelled, she said.

"Companies tend to like to think of their employees as interchangeable plug-ins, that can be renewed in different jobs," according to Cooper who added that this perception is slowly shifting as companies find that they are losing their employees.

Companies also tend to want to manage open source projects, rather than facilitate them, to serve their business objectives, Cooper said. They demand, for example, that their staff work on open-source projects that are of interest to the company. Companies have created a pattern of working that lets them predict how much it is going to cost to do, and when it is going to get done, and though they have to change, it is taking them time to do it, she added.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Whitepapers

• Selecting Effective Virtual Directories
• Best Practices for HP Servers and HP Enterprise Virtual Array in a Microsoft Exchange
• Compliance, Protection, Recovery: A Layered Approach to Laptop Security
• Endpoint Security: Data Protection for IT, Freedom for Laptop Users
• IT Departments on Data Security: A Research Concepts Survey
• Laptop Security Tool Helps Allina Hospitals Track 97% of IT Assets

View more SOFTWARE whitepapers

Webcasts

• Managing the End User Experience-A Real World Example of Success
• Lowering the Cost of Email Archives
• Google Webcast: Why archive email? Top challenges and best practices
• High Availability for SQL Server 2005 Using Array-Based Replication and Host-Based Mirroring Technologies
• Technical Overview of Exchange Server 2007 with HP Servers and Storage
• Bringing Order and Security to your Mobile Workforce: Corporate Mobility Policy and Device Management On-Demand

View more SOFTWARE webcasts

Special Reports

• Application Performance Management Executive Guide
• Executive Guide: Building a Service Oriented Architecture
• IT Buyers Guide To: Collaboration

View more SOFTWARE special reports