I\'ve recently had a talk with someone about how to include open source projects

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?

Explanation / Answer

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.

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