Should I include GPL'd OS Projects on my resume?

Question

I've recently had a talk with someone about how to include open source projects on my resume. I wanted to include a project of mine where I'd invested a significant amount of code and time: ~40,000 Lines of code and 8 months. He recommended against it though since it was GPL'd, saying it could turn off recruiters since I might include my project (in part or whole) while working there and force the whole project to be OS.

I just don't think thats a realistic problem though, but I'm not sure. So my question: Is it safe to include GPL'd OS projects on my resume, or will it just turn recruiter's off?

Answer 1

The license is irrelevant (in relation to your decision to include it on your resume). Don't mention GPL in your resume, but do list the projects and your contributions.

Think about the argument for a second. Instead, lets say you worked for Oracle or any other large software company. Would you hesitate to mention that you made significant contributions to their product? Of course not. Naturally, if you were to take any of the code you wrote for a previous employer and include it in the project you were working on for your new employer then you would certainly get a letter from the lawyers of your previous employer. (Assuming you were discovered, but the same argument is true for including GPL code.) That my friends is illegal, and more of an intellectual property violation than including GPL code.

The "viral" (as Mason and Steve Ballmer call it) nature of the GPL only applies to the code, not the software developer. If you write an "if" statement just like the "if" statement you wrote on a GPL project that doesn't make the new project also GPL.

Hopefully the software company you are working for does not expect you to steal source code from previous projects or employers for the purposes of them reselling it. Instead they should be looking for your experience and how you can use that experience to make their products better. If that experience was gained on a proprietary licensed project, or a GPL licensed project is irrelevant.

Answer 2

You could force their project into being open source because you included some GPL'd code from your own project into theirs

1. This is untrue: If you own the copyright to the code, you can use it any way you like. Releasing it under the GPL in no way precludes you from using it in other ways. It's your code: you can do what you want with it.
2. This is absurd: If it's not your code they're worried about, but the idea that you might grab someone else's code from the GPL project, then they'd be just as worried (if not more so) if you'd previously worked on proprietary code. What if you incorporated that into your work? Your previous employer could sue them.

If your potential employer would be scared off by work you've done on a GPL project, they are utterly clueless and you don't want to work for them anyway.

Answer 3

Feel free to list contributions that you've made as relevant experience. If they understand the problems with the GPL, and you understand them as well, then that should be good enough for both of you to understand that you won't use it in their product.

Besides, open-source licensing is about shared usefulness, not a transfer of ownership. Unless you did something stupid like signing over your copyright to the FSF, the code you wrote is still your intellectual property and you're free to use it in a proprietary project, no matter what else you've done with it. (It becomes a bit less clear-cut if someone else has modified your code since then, of course.)

But to be honest, headaches like this are why I avoid GPL code entirely. It doesn't even play nicely with other open-source licenses (have fun trying to mix an MPL or BSD library into a GPL project!), let alone proprietary code. It's like Richard M. Ford saying you can have your open-source any color you want as long as it's gray. I don't buy that. Personally, I see the MPL as about as close to the platonic ideal of an open-source license as we're gonna get, but that's a matter for a different debate.

Answer 4

I have released a lot of code as GPL, and yes, I do put it on my CV. One thing that many people don't realize is, releasing your code as GPL doesn't take control of the code away from you. You are, for instance (if you remain the sole copyright holder) free to make a proprietary fork of your code, or dual license it so that it fits the needs of another company or project.

I don't recommend doing that, but it is an option that is available to you should you want to use your code in a new job where the license might be problematic.

Still, not listing substantial experience on your CV seems like a bad idea to me, in almost any case. You might not want to list previous employment with Bernie Madoff, for instance. Barring something like that, of course you should list it.

Answer 5

It depends. If the work on the OS project helps you to look more experienced for the job you are applying for, you should definitely include it on the CV. The GPL argument is nonsense and anybody who is afraid of the GPL needs to learn a lesson or two. (See all the other answers)

On the other hand, if the OS project is irrelevant for the for the job you are applying to, you might decide not to mention it, for the simple reason that it probably won't impress the recruiter.

For example, if I had to apply for a C#-Job, I would not include my open source project written in C (padJoy, a plugin for playstation emulators), but I would probably mention a few (nontrivial) patches I've once sent to the DotGNU portable.net team (a project similar to Mono).

Answer 6

I would do either of these two things, but probably both:

• List it in the experience section of your resume, with the rest of your jobs. I do this with my freelance work, so why not do it for FOSS involvement? You were a <Developer> for <OSS Project> from <Start Date> to <End Date> and accomplished a bulleted list of tasks.

• Save it for the interview. It's not necessarily something that a recruiter or front-line hiring staff would appreciate, but it should definitely be respected by the technical staff that is interviewing you. I would certainly respect it, and not have any fear of reprisal.

Answer 7

Depends, many big companies require you to have reasonable time periods of difference between the time you worked on a GPLed code and a similar product for a company. e.g. If you submit a patch in linux, Microsoft/Apple may not allow you to work on certain part or the whole OS team for some time (1 year) or may infact disqualify you from working on certain projects