Good Employment Agreement

[Greg Rundlett]

At first you may think this is off-topic, but I think it is extremely 
germain to any discussion of Linux, and as a free software advocate and 
web developer, I've tussled with these issues for a long time (without 
finding many absolute answers).

I'm trying to come up with a 'good' employment agreement or corporate IP 
policy that covers 'itellectual property' (apologies to RMS. I know that 
term is overly vague and encompasses at least three separate areas of 
law and history, but...).

When I say 'good', I mean I would like to create an employment agreement 
/ company policy that is balanced, versus the standard 'if you think of 
it while employed by ACME, then ACME owns it' approach.

The other thing I'm trying to achieve is to cover the issues of 
copyright, and patent rights in an environment where GNU software is used. 

 From a practical perspective, I am a web developer who writes PHP 
scripts and tools on my own time, possibly releasing those scripts as 
GPL projects.  I also use GPL projects and other OpenSource code from 
MySQL to Apache, PERL etc.  How should a company that supports the 
concepts of free software create an employment agreement that respects 
the contributions of the employee and also implements a 'defensive 
copyright and/or patent' strategy?

I bring all my accumulated experience, and knowledge of GPL software, 
and my personal projects to work, and build on those ideas in my 
professional capacity.  Most employment agreements I've signed in the 
past basically ask that you list all the things you've ever done that 
are not subject to assignment to the company.  Then they say something 
to the effect that anything you do, think, or reduce to practice is the 
property of the company.  It seems to me to be an exercise of complete 
nonsense to claim any rights in software, since my ideas are just added 
to the ideas of others, but given that the US legal system does not 
share my attitudes toward software patents and copyright, does anyone 
know of a good example of copyright, patent, trademark, employment 
and/or non-compete agreements specifically in the field of web 
development?  Does a system comprised of PHP scripts constitute 'software'?

I found a fairly good example from the Embedded Linux Consortium. (the 
second half of their bylaws) at 
http://www.embedded-linux.org/files/ELCByLawsPlusIPRA.pdf, but I'm 
looking for more feedback from the community.  I am frustrated not to 
find more information about how companies can best implement the GPL in 
their IP policies at gnu.org, or the many free software advocate sites.

Thanks,
Greg

-- 

Greg Rundlett
Chief Technology Officer
Knowledge Institute
creators of the Business Utility Zone Gateway
at www.buzgate.org
(603) 642-4720
greg at buzgate.org
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
		-- Alfred Adler