At my university, this is already the policy, more or less. If you develop software and release it GPL, they'll let you be. But otherwise, they own everything you produce. This is also true for most companies. Interestingly, if a history prof writes a book, he gets to keep all the profit. But if you as an engineer or programmer develop something and try to sell it without the university, even if done on your own time, the university will claim a conflict of interest and claim ownership. Many corporations do this as well. In some cases this may have some merit in that you have additional resources that you wouldn't otherwise have, and therefore couldn't have done this without corporate help. But in many cases the individual truly is developing this on their own - and the corporate entity still claims it. My thinking is that if corporations want to raid the fruits of their employees' off hours activity, they ought to be forced to take it to court. Of course, the only way this can be fair is if the corporation pays the entire court cost including that of the employee (will never happen). Likewise, the employee should have taken pains to demonstrate that their product was produced independent of corporate resources. Finally, if the employee wins, he keeps his job, keeps his invention, and keeps his money (having no court costs).
Sorry if I'm a bit discombobulated... I keep restarting my typing due to a certain two year old...
