Comment by ErroneousBosh
7 hours ago
> Sounds like he's getting paid to work on the same thing by a slightly different stakeholder.
This honestly sounds like the sort of thing I'd sit down with the employee, their new employer, and various "Compliance Team" members, and firm up a bit.
Sounds good for everyone.
We get our bugs fixed, $vendor gets to say "Well we have this thing that was developed in-house for BoshNet, that might solve your problem too, it's going to cost you <some comical amount>", and everyone's happy.
No company with a legal rep is going to be happy with that situation - ever.
Who even owns the code the person is working on? Who is responsible when it goes wrong?
Never happy is a bit of an exaggeration. SYSV UNIX had all of these risks and various legal departments went through them as they do regularly for more typical types of research.
When it was explicit, and part of the relationship, sure. Because those questions aren’t questions.
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That’s the “firming up” bit. You have a contract that deems the code “work for hire” even though the money flow is wonky. Legally the guy is like any 1099.