Comment on I wrote a program for my boss. How legal is to to write the program again and make it FOSS?
boblin@infosec.pub 11 months agoLegally it is quite clear. Taking a description of a closed source program and writing a new one is ok in most cases (unless that description is API docs - see Cisco vs Arista). Taking a look at closed source software and then implementing your own version is poison as far as OSS goes. OP implemented the first version, so that’s already a problem. They may get away is they describe what the program does to someone else and let them implement it, but OP would not be able to touch the source code
MagicShel@programming.dev 11 months ago
I agree. Particularly because it’s less about the truth and more about what can be proven in court. But even more, they don’t want to pay a lawyer a bunch of money to defend this even if you could prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. You can tell by the way they didn’t want to pay a lawyer to answer this question.