The world and his blog are reporting that Justin Frankel has resigned (NYT - registration required) from Nullsoft, probably due to AOL pulling WASTE, an encrypted P2P application.

Before his web site was slashdotted into oblivion (nice way to start unemployment, spending your savings on bandwidth charges) he had a statement posted in his .plan.

For me, coding is a form of self-expression.

It's probably the form I'm most effective at.

Everything I code is arguably owned by the company.

The company controls what I do with my code [in the past, it seemed I had freedom, but it turns out all of that was not really the case--rather, I was somehow avoiding the control illicitly (for 4 years)]

The company controls the most effective means of self-expression I have.

This is unacceptable to me as an individual, therefore I must leav.

I don't know when it will be, but I'm not going to last much longer.

I have nothing but respect for the company--I've just come to realize that it is time to do something different.

A manifesto for unrealistic expectations? Of course when a company pays you they own your code (assuming you write it on company time or use company equipment). That is what you are employed for, to expect otherwise is either naïve or simply stupid. When you compound your stupidity by developing a secure system which could, potentially, be the next, harder to stop, Napster when you work for AOL Time Warner, a company who owns and distributes music and video, then express surprise when the company objects to your distribution of that code you have to ask "Is Justin Frankel living in the real world?". Apparently not.