My situation:I have written a framework before I started my new job. I own the copyright.It has a bunch of boilerplate logic inside of it, like any piece of software. (duh!)I don't want to use the whole framework in my new job, but I do need to re-use some parts of it in a similar framework that I am building for my new job.It is impractical to re-implement / re-think all the logic from scratch. It is a lot of logic and logic is logic, you can't make it much different. For example, how many different versions of a HashMap can you code? I bet they will be very similar and the third version can claim that you violated the copyright of the first version. :(It is impractical to try to re-invent the API. Can you re-invent the API of a HashMap? Maybe you can change put(k,v) to add(k,v), but not much more than that.My idea to protect myself and my previous code:I will tell my employer that I am building the new framework based on a previous one that I have written under the MIT license. So in the future if I use my previous framework someplace else, or even another derived version of it, that has some pieces of code similar with this new framework I am building now for the employer, they won't be able to say I am using their code, the one I wrote for them.My questions:I am not distributing my code to anyone. I don't have to distribute my MIT licensed code to anyone, if I own the copyright, correct? I mean, can someone request that I release my code that I now claim it is under MIT license? It would not be the end of the world and I would certainly agree to do that under a legal threat.Does this strategy make any sense? My final goal is to be able to use a derived version of my previous coded framework without losing the copyright to it. At the same time, i do not want to distribute this code as an open-source project to anyone. I have other open-source projects, that I freely distribute, but this one I would like to keep it to myself so I can use on my jobs (not contractor jobs).It is like claiming that you have a framework under the MIT license, without actually distributing and/or showing to anyone. If it is out there, free and easily available, my employers don't need me anymore. They can just take the code and give it to someone else to use it.Notes:I have listed this framework as a previous invention before I started the job.I have not released this code anywhere. It is on my private SVN repo I host in my private server.My idea in a nutshel:My plan is to keep the previous code to myself, use parts of it in this new framework I am building for the employer and tell the employer it is work derived from a MIT licensed framework I have coded before and have not distributed to anyone. I am not forced to distribute a software I coded under MIT license, am I? If later, some legal claim happens (hopefully not), i can immediately paste the license on all the sources and show/release the code.
Can I use MIT license to give some of my previous written code to employer so that I protect myself and don't lose my copyright?
licensing;copyright;mit license