Man, I feel you. Early on in my career I was working at a pretty large digital agency and I was commiting some PRs to jQuery Mobile ( remember when that was a thing ). We were using it a lot on projects within the agency so occasionaly I would do this on company time - after all, I needed things fixed for us to be able to use it.
The jQuery Mobile team eventually asked if I was interested in helping out more as part of the core team and asked if my company might 'donate' a few days a month in time to the project etc etc -- I asked my manager who thought it was a good idea, but that because of the whole clause BS in my contract, I should clear it with the legal team.
Nope.
It became a massive thing for months, a lot of emails and meetings back and fourth. Eventually I managed to get everyones contract changed but ONLY for OSS. The short of it was that they came around to the idea that no one can OWN OSS.
If it was done on company time, then any worked should be cleared by line managers on a project ( because we might be using the library ).
If it was done outside of company time, then no bother.
Any potential tools developed in-house that might be good for open sourcing, went through a proposal system and tech leads from within the company made the call.
I know its not perfect, but I would try this approach. Start by making a list of as many OSS projects, tools etc that your company already uses and make a case for creating an open source culture within the company.
Go to your legal team and be specific about why nobody can own something thats open.
Fight to change your contract ( and everyone elses ), specifically for OSS.
When it comes to side-projects that might become a thing ... thats what pseudo github accounts are for ;)
The jQuery Mobile team eventually asked if I was interested in helping out more as part of the core team and asked if my company might 'donate' a few days a month in time to the project etc etc -- I asked my manager who thought it was a good idea, but that because of the whole clause BS in my contract, I should clear it with the legal team.
Nope.
It became a massive thing for months, a lot of emails and meetings back and fourth. Eventually I managed to get everyones contract changed but ONLY for OSS. The short of it was that they came around to the idea that no one can OWN OSS.
If it was done on company time, then any worked should be cleared by line managers on a project ( because we might be using the library ).
If it was done outside of company time, then no bother.
Any potential tools developed in-house that might be good for open sourcing, went through a proposal system and tech leads from within the company made the call.
I know its not perfect, but I would try this approach. Start by making a list of as many OSS projects, tools etc that your company already uses and make a case for creating an open source culture within the company.
Go to your legal team and be specific about why nobody can own something thats open.
Fight to change your contract ( and everyone elses ), specifically for OSS.
When it comes to side-projects that might become a thing ... thats what pseudo github accounts are for ;)