Brief on the issue of FLOSS discrimination

It's common to encounter discrimination against FLOSS. There are two common examples of discrimination:

• Commercial sourcing contracts uses language incompatible with software which is FLOSS
• Employee contracts uses language incompatbile with contributing to FLOSS projects

This document deals with the last example, discrimination against contribution to FLOSS projects.

Impact

Organizational impacts includes:

• Reduced ability to contribute features the company needs
• Reduced ability ability to fix bugs the company suffers from
• Reduced personal development for employees

Take action

• Read your employment contract.
• Talk to your manager, ask him/her if you are allowed to contribute to Open Source projects.
• Argue why your should be allowed to contribute.
• If you are in Sweden, become a member of Open Source Sweden who are trying to change so that the default employment contract allows contributions to Open Source projects. Support membership: https://opensourcesweden.se/2848. Apply for full membership: https://opensourcesweden.se/medlem/bli_medlem

Legal wording

Here is an example of representative language that could be used to encourage open source participation by employees.

Employee is both encouraged and permitted to: (i) contribute software
code or other materials to, and otherwise participate in, any open
source development project  and (ii) does not compete, or otherwise
conflict, with the business of the Company. (addresses Conflicts of
Interest issues)

Company Property does not include any such materials contributed to an
open source project to the extent that they are in the public domain
or publicly available under an open source or open content license.
(as part of a Confidentiality provision)"