I'm like many programmers with young careers; I maintain a few pet projects that I use in order to improve my skills in both the domain I work in, as well as the craft of software development itself.
Interestingly enough, I was having a discussion with some of my colleagues regarding one of my projects at a company event, and my boss was present as well. After a lengthy discussion, I was asked to bring it forward at the upcoming team meeting, because it could be a nice addition to the company's product line.
I'm not sure how I should feel about this. On one hand, the code isn't of much use on my personal computer, and adding it to my company's arsenal would definitely make it a better product, by exposing it to our large team of talented engineers. But on the other hand, I don't want to lose ownership of this project; I work on it on my own pace, I use it to provide me direction on research on topics I'm interested in, and I've been working on it for over a year now.
I suspect that some of the answers might come at me and warn me of the potential legal repercussions or conflict of interest issues that might arise with my employer. For the purposes of this question, please ignore this and assume everything is legal.
So my question is: Is there an opportunity there, or should I simply bring it over to the next team meeting, and continue work as normal?