[gnome-women] Help a journalist: Does your company pay you to write open source code?

[Esther Schindler <esther bitranch com>]

I'm a computer industry journalist who just started in a new  
position; I'm senior online editor cio.com and csoonline.com. The  
first article that I decided to tackle is about open source  
development in the enterprise, and I hope you can help me.

In essence: if you write open source software as part of your  
salaried job, I want to ask a few questions about how you've worked  
out the logistics or legal details with your management. (And I'd be  
*really* happy if I can quote open source women! Yay for visibility!)

I know, from Evans Data research, that a rather high percentage of  
software developers write open source code, whether on their own time  
or the company's clock; some meaningful percentage of those  
developers also contribute the changes back to the open source  
community. And one of the factoids mentioned in passing at the  
Gartner Open Source summit in September was that a growing percentage  
of corporations are paying their own developers to work on open  
source projects, some of whom do so full time. IBM is probably the  
easiest example, with several people on the Eclipse project employed  
by IBM.

I'm looking for salaried open source developers, those developers'  
management, or those who can speak personally to the issue -- so I  
can write an article to provide guidance to IT Managers who are  
contemplating such options.

I hope to create management guidelines for companies who want to take  
advantage of open source code, by adding the features they need to  
the existing code base, then contributing the enhancements back to  
the development community. But doing so can raise intellectual  
property questions (such as "what does it mean for 'work for  
hire'?")... and perhaps several other issues that make lawyers and  
CEOs uncomfortable. I'd like to get your input on the issues the open  
source developer and her manager need to deal with.

If you're willing to chat with me (ideally in e-mail), drop me a line  
at eschindler cxo com and I'll inundate you with questions. If not...  
I apologize for interrupting your day. <smile>

Esther Schindler
senior online editor, cio.com