With certain exceptions and subject to certain limitations, copyright in computer software code exists whether it's explicitly asserted or not (see Section 14 of the Copyright Act 1994). The default legal position if you publish code without a licence is, "All rights reserved."
If you're an employee, subsection 21(2) of the Copyright Act 1994 provides that, in the absence of an agreement to the contrary, your employer is the first owner of the copyright in any software you produce in the course of your employment. If you're a contractor who has been hired to produce, or to help to produce, a specific piece of software, subsection 21(3) provides that your client is the first owner of the copyright, again in the absence of an agreement to the contrary.
What this means for you is that, if you were being paid by Manaaki Whenua while you wrote the software, and the software was supposed to help you do your work or to benefit Manaaki Whenua in some other way, you should assume that Manaaki Whenua is the copyright holder unless you have a good legal reason, like a contract you individually negotiated, to think otherwise.
Copyright can be transferred or assigned to another person or entity. It can also be disclaimed entirely by its then-current owner, in which case the software is said to have been released into the public domain. Finally, it expires, but only over timescales that are unlikely to be relevant for the purposes of this document.
In general, a licence is legal permission, given by someone authorised to grant that permission, to do a thing, or several things, that you wouldn't otherwise be allowed to do. Software licences may grant, or explicitly withhold, the following permissions:
- To acquire and retain a copy of the software
- To use the software
- To obtain the software's source code
- To modify the source code, and use software as so modified
- To redistribute all or part of the source code, with or without modifications, and gratis or for a fee
- To transfer or assign your licence to others.
An open-source licence is a licence that grants permission to receive and retain a copy of a program's source code, as distinct from only precompiled binaries. Most copyright holders who release software under open-source licences do so gratis, in which case the term FOSS (Free, Open-Source Software) applies, and also grant the following permissions:
- Permission to use the software for commercial or non-commercial purposes
- Permission to add to or modify the code, and to use the code as augmented or modified
- Permission to redistribute the code with or without modifications (some licences require that any such modifications be licensed under the same terms and conditions as the original code; this is usually a good idea even where not explicitly required)
One of the most famous open-source licences is the GNU General Public Licence. Information about how to use that licence is available here, and much of the latter material is applicable, with slight modifications, to other open-source software licences. In particular, please note the recommendation that every source code file have its own copyright notice.
You're unlikely to be able to negotiate a copyright disclaimer, however Manaaki Whenua may be willing to release the software under a FOSS licence in its own name. We suggest that you engage early with your job leader or portfolio leader when you realise that your work involves writing software that it is worth releasing.