gstreamer open source

[Atzmon dahan]

Hi,

I have an issue and I'd like to consult with you. I hope I have reached the right address.

The issue is:

The last company I worked for closed two months ago.

One of the products of this company is P2P which is based on gstreamer.

(libiconv gnustl gettext libffi zlib glib nettle libtasn1 bnutic-fixup gnutls glib-networking-static libxml2 libsoup gssdp libuuid gupnp gupnp-igd libnice)

A P2P recipe had been added and was developed by the company.

gstreamer libraries together with P2P recipe create P2P  library on mobile and bin execute on device and server.

The P2P product  based on gstreamer has been running for more than 3 years and used by cloud customers.

The director of  former company claims for ownship of the P2P product based on gstreamer code!

My questions:

1.Is it legal for the director to claim ownership of the code?

2.They committed to making the development of the company public after the 3 years in which the product ran in the market,aren't they?

I will appreciate your consideration of the topic. 

Regards

Atzmon Dahan

Free Lancer

RT embedded Engineer

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[Nicolas Dufresne-5]

Le mar. 29 oct. 2019 11 h 55, Atzmon dahan <[hidden email]> a écrit :

Hi,

I have an issue and I'd like to consult with you. I hope I have reached the right address.

The issue is:

The last company I worked for closed two months ago.

One of the products of this company is P2P which is based on gstreamer.

(libiconv gnustl gettext libffi zlib glib nettle libtasn1 bnutic-fixup gnutls glib-networking-static libxml2 libsoup gssdp libuuid gupnp gupnp-igd libnice)

A P2P recipe had been added and was developed by the company.

gstreamer libraries together with P2P recipe create P2P  library on mobile and bin execute on device and server.

The P2P product  based on gstreamer has been running for more than 3 years and used by cloud customers.

The director of  former company claims for ownship of the P2P product based on gstreamer code!

Legal questions are always very hard to openly discussed. There is no lawyer on this mailing, and a lot more context would be needed to make a case.

My questions:

1.Is it legal for the director to claim ownership of the code?

It is entirely legal to make proprietary plugins to be used inside GStreamer framework, or to write a proprietary application on top of GStreamer. What's would not be ok, would be to ship a product with a modified GStreamer and not share the changes to the people this was distributed to.

I don't see in your intro any sign of such thing being breached.

2.They committed to making the development of the company public after the 3 years in which the product ran in the market,aren't they?

I'm not sure how to interpret this one. But verbal disagreement between two party are likely the hardest to resolve. Have you well communicated your disagreement ? Or maybe requested help from a mediator ?

I will appreciate your consideration of the topic. 

Regards

Atzmon Dahan

Free Lancer

RT embedded Engineer

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[Russel Winder]

On Fri, 2019-11-01 at 17:08 +0100, Nicolas Dufresne wrote:
> Le mar. 29 oct. 2019 11 h 55, Atzmon dahan <[hidden email]> a
> écrit :
>
[…]
> Legal questions are always very hard to openly discussed. There is no
> lawyer on this mailing, and a lot more context would be needed to make a
> case.

It is also the case there is not just one legal system, so there is no world-
wide applicable answer to any question of law. Legal question must be asked
and answered separately in each and every jurisdiction.

>
> > My questions:
> > 1.Is it legal for the director to claim ownership of the code?
> >
>
> It is entirely legal to make proprietary plugins to be used inside
> GStreamer framework, or to write a proprietary application on top of
> GStreamer. What's would not be ok, would be to ship a product with a
> modified GStreamer and not share the changes to the people this was
> distributed to.

In jurisdiction that recognise and enforce the licences under which GStreamer
is licenced. There are likely jurisdictions in which this is not the case.

Whether the director can claim ownership personally is a complicated question
depending on how the company is being liquidated, what the debts of the
company are, in which jurisdiction the company was incorporated (and thus
being liquidated) in the first place, what the various terms of the
incorporation are/were, and what the terms of the contracts of employment of
the employees now made redundant were.  Assuming of course that the company
being closed is due to liquidation. If the company just chose to cease trading
but is not in liquidation then whether the director can claim ownership
remains a complicated question based on the contracts in place.

> I don't see in your intro any sign of such thing being breached.
>
> 2.They committed to making the development of the company public after the
> > 3 years in which the product ran in the market,aren't they?

I suspect there was no legally binding commitment, and thus no case to answer.

For clarity on the above opinions, I am not a lawyer, my experience is only in
the jurisdiction of England & Wales, I have been through company liquidations
as a director, and I have been an expert witness in software, and indeed
email, related cases.

--
Russel.
===========================================
Dr Russel Winder      t: [phone]
41 Buckmaster Road    m: [phone]
London SW11 1EN, UK   w: www.russel.org.uk


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