And this question is governed by the work made for hire doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire). Ownership depends on whether you are an employee or an independent contractor. Which of these two you are depends on separate analysis. If you are an employee then the boss owns the lot. However, if you can prove that you are an independent contractor, then the code belongs to you because it is not in the 9 statutorily-defined categories in Section 101 of the Copyright Act. Interesting question. -- Noah Note: I am not an attorney and the preceding comment is NOT intended as legal advice.

Actually, if you can't produce papers, you're likely to be held until you're deported. You won't have a trial, because you're not entitled to one as someone who has come to the U.S. illegally. If this law is enforced with any degree of vigor we may be seeing quite a few people headed South.

I usually lurk here. Had to create an account to mention archlinux, which is a streamlined, eminently customizable distro. It installs a base system by default and the rest is up to you. It is also a rolling distro with binary packaging for i686.