Rackspace, a company that is built on open source technologies, had a policy that required its employees to get permission from a lawyer before contributing back to any open source projects during their free time. And now one of their executives is patting himself on the back for relaxing this awful policy. Am I reading this correctly?
If I'm understanding this correctly, the chief change is that now a Rackspace employee who wishes to contribute to OSS during work hours only needs their manager's approval, as opposed to having to go all the way to legal?<p>This could be worded more clearly to indicate what about this is new; I can't think of an alternate interpretation that <i>doesn't</i> suggest Rackspace previously forbid employees from contributing to OSS on their own time, which I assume (and surely hope) has never been the case.
> Now, there are a couple of nuances to this new policy:<p>> 1. Rackers are encouraged to contribute on their own time, and if they wish to contribute during work hours they must obtain approval from their manager.<p>> 2. If a Racker would like to contribute to a project that is directly competitive with Rackspace, we’d like to understand why before they contribute.<p>2 has got to mean<p>"If a Racker would like to contribute to a project that is directly competitive with Rackspace <i>[during work hours]</i>, we’d like to understand why before they contribute."<p>otherwise, i don't think such a policy is even legal?
Is the main point that Rackspace has relaxed a restriction that required pre-approval for employees to contribute to OSS _on their own time_ but they still need approval to contribute while at work?
So only open source work doesn't need to go through a lawyer?<p>"You can claim a copyright, but only if you couldn't be successful enough to make money."<p>Sounds like a big "fuck you" to me. Other corporations just ignore side projects outside the problem domain of the business. By making this statement explicitly permitting open-source, it feels like the screws are setup for the moment someone wants to make money.