Recently, I have been thinking about donating code to the open source cause but I have no idea what I should do because I don't want my original code to end in the wrong hands and used for proprietary purposes.

This thread is for any suggestions from members of these forums who may have more experience than me in this regard.

The code I am talking about is an advanced expression evaluating class originally written in Delphi Pascal and then translated into C++.

As this has been extensively debugged and tested and I have created a graph-plotting calculator using it, I think, it will be a pity if I don't publish it, so that, others may benefit from the thousands of hours I spent writing and testing it.

I am writing this because I don't want a potential piece of work to be lost which is inevitable if I continue to procrastinate about this decision.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Why not SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/)? Take a look at http://sourceforge.net/publish/ and do a little reading and see what you think.

Look through the Open Source license schemes -- excellent article at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/FOSS_Licensing/Scenarios.

Give it some thought and go for it.

Hope this helps some.

"I'm Not A Lawyer," But ...™

You will need to be able to show that the work is yours; that it's not "a work made for hire" and that you did not make it while employed by anyone else.

If you can show that, then I would recommend that you secure a copyright to it in your country, e.g. at http://www.copyright.gov it would cost about $35 bucks. Once the certificate comes in the mail, you're now free to do with "your property" anything that you like ... including give it away.

Now, the copyright office just registers your claim. They do not validate it. However, this is a legally definable declaration of claim that is internationally recognized, and it's something that I would definitely require from anyone who offered me anything. My butt, basically, is now covered: if someone sues, I can point to this certificate, which I kept a copy of and which anyone can look up, and truthfully assert an innocent-infringement defense. (Meanwhile, your butt is toast.)

"I'm Not A Lawyer," But ...™

You will need to be able to show that the work is yours; that it's not "a work made for hire" and that you did not make it while employed by anyone else.

If you can show that, then I would recommend that you secure a copyright to it in your country, e.g. at http://www.copyright.gov it would cost about $35 bucks. Once the certificate comes in the mail, you're now free to do with "your property" anything that you like ... including give it away.

Now, the copyright office just registers your claim. They do not validate it. However, this is a legally definable declaration of claim that is internationally recognized, and it's something that I would definitely require from anyone who offered me anything. My butt, basically, is now covered: if someone sues, I can point to this certificate, which I kept a copy of and which anyone can look up, and truthfully assert an innocent-infringement defense. (Meanwhile, your butt is toast.)

I am not a US citizen but an EU citizen. The code was written privately at home. Unfortunately, the idea of having to spend money to get a recognized proof that the code is mine, is a de-motivator.

You don't necessarily need to copyright your code -- particularly if you're releasing it with Creative Commons or GPL licensing. You should look at both Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) and GPL (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html), read them carefully and decide if either or both fit your needs.

If I understand your intent to donate your work (which usually means "give it away"), you would want to do so with the provisions of the GPL or Creative Commons (not to sure about using both). You don't need to spend money to use either.

And, frankly, SoureForge is probably the best platform for the widest distribution.

Give it some thought.