I have never investigated, but I was under the impression that in Germany the employer owns all source code created during working hours by default.

Most employers that are not IT focused wont even understand what open source is or how it works. So I guess it's hopeless for many to get permission.

The linked site should probably focus on explaining benefits of open source and advocate legal guidelines for _employers_ primarily.

Depends on how you frame it, the employee still owns the work in the sense that they are the copyright holder. But the employer is granted exclusive usage rights to the work, so you wouldn't have the rights to license it to someone else as is encouraged in the article.

That would be relevant, for example, when the company goes defunct, and no one else holds any usage rights for the work. Then you'd regain those usage rights.

That of course is iffy to make use of because you'd need to be sure that you are considered the exclusive author, and that no one else acquired these exclusive usage rights.

> in Germany the employer owns all source code created during working hours by default.

Same in most countries I worked in. Generally it's not just the business hours, but also any kind of device used. If code got edited at one point on a company laptop, or during office hours, then it's the company's.

Most intellectual jobs in quant finance will also routinely enforce an intellectual property clause in their work contract, which extends appropriation to anything resulting from the knowledge you acquired at the company. Not sure if that is enforceable in practice, but it's always there.