While working as the sole developer for a small company I setup bitbucket repos. These were mostly for WordPress sites with the exception of an in house web app and a couple phone apps. I put in my two week notice and before these two weeks were up I transferred them to my personal account for my portfolio and future reference and in preparation of setting up fresh repos for everything the next day. The company got wind of it somehow and had bitbucket lock my account while investigating (they found that as the admin I had the right to do so and unlocked my account the next day). Now the company is threatening to sue unless I sign a ridiculous severance agreement and this is all being done out of spite because I decided to leave the company. I plan on getting a top notch IT lawyer if they pursue this but wanted to get some opinions. Do they have a case? All code is still in production and they still have copies of everything (including the repos which I imported back to my work account). There was no non-disclosure, copyrights, or anything.
If you developed it for the company it's 100% the IP of your former employer.
>>62406933
I do understand that but I'm not claiming ownership, don't plan on reselling it, nothing like that. Just wanted a reference of my work.
>>62407021
Not yours to show off
>>62407021
Give it back, Tyrone.
But really, it's not yours to show off, and you are quickly burning down any relationship you have with this employer and setting yourself up for a painful lawsuit that you will lose.
>>62406845
Depends on what contracts you've signed, where/on whose time you developed them on, and whos name you put for the copyright.
>>62407074
>>62407138
Understood. Thanks for the input.
>>62407179
No contracts were signed and didn't put copyrights on anything.
>>62406845
If you wrote the code and worked on it during work time, and if you used company equipment, they have a good case against you.
If you look over your contract you might see some clause that says this. Further there are very common contract clauses that state that any code you write even outside of work with your own equipment belongs to them.
Now it reads as if these sites were part of the company's work? In which case you have probably stolen their property. Lawyer up regardless.
>>62406845
i did the same thing for a company i used to work for as an intern.keeping repos for future references is something normal.i did many interview irl or over skype,and most of the time companies ask for what i worked on,and they want to see what i worked on(even a slice of the code).i could say it's secret/private or i'm not supposed to show it,but as long as it's giving more chance of convincing the next company to hire me,fuck the previous company and their rights,because after all i'm not selling it or putting it on a public repo.
many companies(like one i worked for) refuse this kind of gesture,but always keep it secret.and they do refuse that an employee copies all their shit because if one day they decide to fuck me up somehow,i can fuck them up twice.an employee who have full copy of the source code and database dumps can make serious problems to small and average IT companies.
>>62407310
Thanks for the input. No contract was signed... they're a small company and I was the first real developer they had. The sites were part of the companies work yes but didn't know I was doing anything wrong... they don't even know what version control is or how to use it so figured they'd just go back to their old way of doing things. Will get a lawyer regardless. Thanks.