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