Open source policy

All modern software development from backend, app to web uses 3rd party components as building block. Most of these are open source no matter the tech stack, i.e. .NET, Java, Go, Node, etc. are built from open source components with open source tools.

At Connected Cars, we acknowledge that this is how you build modern software and we want our developers to participate in the open source community both at work and in their spare time.

Therefore the following rights apply to all employees at Connected Cars:

1. The employees at Connected Cars have permission to publicly speak about general architecture, development, technical concepts and similar topics so long as they do not disclose the specific implementation used in Connected Cars.
2. The employees at Connected Cars have permission to develop open source software in their spare time so long as this is not in conflict with Connected Cars’ interests
3. The employees at Connected Cars have permission to contribute to open source projects in their spare time, so long as this is not in conflict with Connected Cars’ interests
4. The employees at Connected Cars have permission to contribute to open source projects (not owned by Connected Cars) during work hours if it supports the work at Connected Cars and the contribution does not constitute more than 20% of the code base.
5. If the employees’ direct manager gives permission, the employee is allowed to publish small code bases (under 1000 lines of code) created during work hours as a new open source project so long as this is not in conflict with Connected Cars’ interests. The employee is under no circumstances allowed to publish algorithms and models developed with insights from data collected from users, vehicles or similar.
6. The employees at Connected Cars have permission to use any open source components in development so long as license limitations are followed.

Common for 1-3 is that Connected Cars does not retain intellectual property over work done in the employees spare time. For all open source contributions done within work hours Connected Cars will retain intellectual property but will allow licensing according to the open source project policy and “copyright assignment” if this is a specific requirement under the open source project.

All rights above, except for 5, are given without the need to seek verbal or written permission. In case of doubt, the employee should always seek approval from their direct manager.