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GNU and the General Public Employment Contract?
adubey asks: "We all know and love the GNU General Public Lisence. Some have argued that the availability of a standard lisence such as GPL along with hard lobbying work by Richard Stallman and others are both among the many forces that helped push free software forward. However, there is still a big laundry list of things holding free software back. Included on this list are restrictive employment contracts that forbid many developers from contributing to free software projects, even if some contributions could help them on the job. Rather than simply write off these people as being stupid for signing one-sided contracts, could we do something to pursuade managers to be more open to free software development? What if there was a standard contract available, between employers and employees, that spefically gave employees the right to contribute to free software projects so long as it benefits the company they work for?" An interesting idea and one that I hope will spark some interesting discussion. Would such a thing be the answer to this problem?
"Now, IANAL, but is it possible to have some type contract that says it would override any previous IP agreement? In other words, allow companies to keep current contracts in place, but overrides previous contracts in the one key detail that it will allow developers to release enhancements to free software packages, so long as the enhancements were developed for the benefit of the company (even if the enhancement - say a bug fix in gcc - is never released in itself)"
It seems to me that the sort of employer who would have a restrictive contract is exactly the sort of employer who would refuse to sign this override.
will:
/consider/ anything less than 'we get first crack at anything you do, and even then you probably cant use it anywhere else'
... =)
a) enough employees stay out of work to fuel the neccessary employment boycott to get companies to even
or
b) companies say 'no', 95% of employees say 'oh well, I tried, but its better than being unemployed', and we all keep living this beautiful capitalist dream without a care in the world
I think b. But, who knows
"Old man yells at systemd"
But those who would contribute to free software shouldn't be working for companies that won't let them. I know the company I work for is great about this. :-) And this was something I looked at before signing.
I think the submittor is talking about the annoying tendency of comapnies to claim off-hours project as their IP. If I write a program on my own time, I should be able to claim it as my intellectual property, and slap the GPL on it. It's not like I'm taking a second job, I'm giving away my work.
But the land-grab mentality about intellectual property causes problems. If I use a company laptop, there might be grounds for them to claim they own my project. Same if I use a company email account on a project mailing list, or if post a quick note about a bug from work.
Something like this makes sense:
"XYZ corp disclaims all rights to Joe Coder's project Foo. Use of corporate assets such as laptops, workstations, or other systems does not grant XYZ corp any rights to Joe Coder's project."
It's pretty reasonable, and assuming Joe is releasing under the GPL there's no chance he'll ever make money off the product himself, so he doesn't have a financial incentive to neglect his real job for the Foo project.
While the idea of organization is, as an idea, good, I don't think unionizing is really the answer. First, I think that the tech sector as a whole is quickly working its way to becoming saturated with workers, especially after the dot-bomb. With many out of work people, and new, fresh from college, workers, keeping any form of solidarity will be tough when there are more people looking for jobs, and its getting easier for companies to find them. Secondly, I'm not real hot on the idea of handing over a portion of my paycheck to a group and hoping that they can make intelligent decisions, worse yet having them call some sort of strike or action that will make it hard to make my rent, and only as a play for their own megalomaniacal purposes. (e.g. Union control over my pension vs. employer control, its just a power grab.) Thirdly, like most unions this one would probably make it easy for lackluster techs/programmers/etc to get promotions based only on seniority, and as a way of getting them out of the way(after all, you can't fire a union worker, no matter how bad they are, but you can promote them and try to get someone who is more capable.) While I agree that there are some injustices in the field, and I agree that programmers shouldn't be forced to give up their own work(assuming that they are not consuming company resources to make it), I don't see a Union as a good answer. But then, perhaps this would be a different kind of union, though I bet most unions claimed the same thing when they started out. So what is the solution, I don't know. But I'm fairly certain that a union is not it.
Necessity is the mother of invention.
Laziness is the father.