Slashdot Mirror
Apple Claims Ownership of Shareware
(54)T-Dub writes "Cricket Media recently released 'Netflix Fanatic', an OSX based shareware app that lets you manage your rental queue without logging on to Netflix. An article on Think Secret reveals the reason behind it's mysterious disappearance. Apparently the developer's employer, Apple, has claimed ownership over the application's name and source code. The developer claims that under Section 2870 of the California Labor Code this is illegal. The law states that if a company has an employment agreement with provisions saying employees must assign the rights of their inventions to their employer, those sections do not apply if the employee developed it on his or her own time, without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information. Within Apple, there's unsubstantiated speculation that Apple wants to include the Netflix Fanatic code in a new version of Sherlock." Also, they're presumably not too worried with employee morale.
Besides, I don't think they said "Please?"
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Yet another slashdot story filled with rampant speculation and innuendo.
So, let's all rant and rave for 500 messages. Then, in 3 days, the real story will come out and be the complete opposite. And it won't ever be mentioned again on slashdot.
Knee-jerk-pot-smoking hippies! The whole bunch of you!
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
A [...] shareware app that lets you manage your rental queue without logging on to Netflix
Is it just me or does this really sound like "check your email without logging on to your mailserver" ?
Me slightly confused.
Why is this story not in the Apple section? Do only positive stories go there or something?
I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
How did Apple find out that one of their employer's had created this?
Did he run around Apple HQ boasting about it? Seems a pretty dumb thing to do, these kinda of clauses (where employers maintain rights to your creations) seem pretty common.
Why didn't he release it under an alias?
"Dre don't get as high as me.... I'm Cheech and Chong" - Snoop Dogg
...until there are a flood of posters who mistakenly assume that the headline refers to Apple trying to claim ownership of the shareware concept? Perhaps "Apple Claims Ownership of Netflix" would have been better.
Don't empoyers always manage to steal your code and claim it as theirs and don't you do the same. I know I reuse code from personal projects in code for work. Naturally, it goes the other way as well.
I can image the employer claiming ownership of
work done in their time, but how can you claim
anything on what people do in their own time. Unless ofcourse you copy some idea from work and make your own version of it.
Does anyone know of any simular such laws outside of california?
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
"The more corrupt the state, the numerous the laws."
Maybe Steve Jobs order a lot of DVD's online... He needs to streamline the ordering process.
I recently saw many Apple bashing articles such as this one, the one about using iTunes windows with old OSX only iPods, etc.
I think it's becoming almost annoying as the omnipresent MS-bashing articles.
Please, post about innovations, not about such idiocies, otherwise it doesn't matter.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
At the University where I was employed, my boss wrote a little Mac program to do cluster logging for the campus clusters. He was a Mac developer, using his own machines (at home) and on his own time. He simply installed it on the clusters at work to solve a problem. When he later uninstalled it, he was ordered to put it back on or face unemployment. When he refused, they escorted him off campus and mailed his things to him.
Apparently, some employers own your intellectual property, inventions, etc. unless you have an explicit agreement otherwise. I know this exists outside of Academia... if Apple's employee agreement says otherwise, perhaps it can override the state code.
I hate to say it, but that's how it works. Companies do this all the time and I'm sure apple will make it right.
Let's take the Stickies application written by Jens Alfke for example:
You can read the whole story about how Jens wrote the stickies program as an Apple employee and had it claimed as Apple's while they made sure it was dealt with at the same time here.
-davidu
# Hack the planet, it's important.
...Am shocked that a corporation would dare do such a thing.
Now, what's the article about again?
This space for rent.
I felt like I was being a little paranoid when I demanded that my last contract - which stated that my "full productive capacity" belonged to my employer - be modified to make it clear that work I did on my time was my own.
Heh. I'll never silly about making such demands again.
Read your contracts, folks. Point out absurdities ("all your thoughts are belong to us") and refuse to sign until they're fixed. If they say "well, we don't mean that..." - get it in writing.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I have read that many companies have similar contracts with employees (My current employer as well) that state that the company has ownership of all code and IP developed while working on company time; however, I have always been under the impression that as soon as I sit down at my computer at home I'm on my own time. As far as I am aware this is also the first case of a situation such as this one occurring; this could mean bad things for developers if Apple is able to make good with their claim.
Maybe this is why Apple took his program. After all Apple OS X is a proprietary operating system on top of proprietary hardware with a single user GUI kludged with a multi-user extension. It is based on FreeBSD hence the name FeeBSD.
Remember if you haven't paid your Mac tax you may be next on the Apple hit list.
This was discussed a while ago on MacSlash. The author directly wrote in apparently.
Here's the link: Employer Grabs Netflix Fanatic Software From Creator
If Apple is like the rest of the industry, morale is already rock-bottom. There are only three options:
1) your job is going to India
2) your job is going to China
3) your job hasn't been offshored... yet
Face it: bean-counters don't care about any of us.
So who's to say this app wan't developed with Apple's "equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information"? I'm failing to see any in depth information regarding Apple's "draconian corporate policy" as Think Secret reports.
Apple has pressured employees to not develop freeware/shareware for other OSes, but when I was there (I left Apple about a year ago), we were encouraged to write non-competing shareware/freeware applications.
It wasn't unheard of for an employee-developed freeware/shareware app to be purchased by Apple for inlclusion in the OS (iPhoto started that way).
Rick Van Riel.
And I'll say it again:
.... to the employer's business.
:(
Section 2870 does *NOT* protect you if you're a software developer. Check out sub section 1. It includes an exemption for the company if your invention relates at the time of conception
The company's case against you is pretty straighforward: "We're in the business of making and selling software. Your invention is software. Hand it over."
And they don't even have to pat you on the head for writing it.
I hope homeboy has more luck trying to exert his rights under the CLC than other people who've fallen for it have had.
Thank god I wasn't the only one who thought that... I'm not the only 'tard!
been worried about employee morale?
Are we supposed to love or hat Apple? They use some open source stuff, they are the underdog to Microsoft, so I thought we were supposed to like them? Then they attack shareware developers with draconian job agreements so we are supposed to hate them?
This is too much for. Can someone please come up with the official slashdot reader postion on Apple?
Just getting the obligatory "this is a good thing" comment out of the way. :-)
evil adrian
You mean, Apple has pulled back software after it has been released to the Internet? That's rich! Did that work for the DeCSS code? Or the Adobe eBook decrypter?
The one foolproof way of ensuring a particular bit of information is forever available on the net is to declare it illegal...
Expect the source code to show up any minute now...
Sherlock never really impressed me- until I tried the latest version; they've included a fair bit of stuff, and at least at work and at home on cable, it's pretty zippy compared to getting the same info via the web. The dictionary search has been pretty handy.
What amazes me is the near vacuum of useful sherlock modules- there's a website here or there that has maybe a dozen or two, of which only a few are actually interesting. There's a fedex module, but no UPS module.
What is MUCH worse is the distribution model for sherlock modules- you don't actually get the module, you get a LINK to the module, and if that website goes down, the module essentially stops working after a while even if you've added it to Sherlock; it only caches them, doesn't download them(which is why it takes a while to access a module if you haven't used sherlock in a while). Stupid, stupid, stupid, STUPID! Not only is it unreliable and a waste of bandwidth, but it has great exploit potential- breaking into one account and an author's module could deliver all sorts of goodies right to an attacker's doorstep, and nobody would be the wiser. Not to mention, maybe Fedex decides they don't like Joe Blo's module and DMCA him- everyone looses their Fedex module.
Please help metamoderate.
I have at least 5 GPL programs out there and I use a psudeoname to protect them from my employer.
No I wont tell you which as that will create documentation so the thieves in corperate can STEAL them.
everything I do at home and from 5:00pm to 8:00am is my fricking property, but corperations do not think that way so you have to take steps to protect yourself.
Some writers also do this to keep their day-job employer from stealing their book.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
From a legal point of view, that is. Section 2870 disallows claiming of rights over software written entirely in the employee's own time
Surely this is covered by the first of those provisions - and possibly the second, depending on what the guy's job at Apple is...++ Say to Elrond "Hello.".
Elrond says "No.". Elrond gives you some lunch.
I've always been amazed at how badly Apple treats everyone from their employees to their dealers. The dealers have been beaten bloody for years, but they keep on coming back. If that isn't zealotry, I don't know what is.
So the author of the code thinks that Apple is violating CA law. Did the author use ANY resources from Apple in developing the product? For instance - did Apple give him his home machine as part of his employment benefit? Where did the compiler come from? Did he have access or use internal Apple tools in developing the product?
If the answer to any of these questions is yes - he would be liable to their claims. That's why you REALLY gotta go the extra mile in separating yourself from your employer. If you work for Apple - develop software for Windows as an example.
I don't know if the guy is being screwed or if Apple is within their rights. I think Apple is being heavy handed - but I don't know all the facts either.
Have you compiled your kernel today??
If Apple's employees want to aviod usurping of personal projects, they can switch to KDE and give their time and contributions to that community. Then Apple's usurping won't happen, and if people actually do switch, it'll make apple thing twice before doing it again...
Apple Exec1: "Every time we usurp a project, we send more people to help out KDE"
Apple Exec2: "Maybe usurping projects is not a good idea?"
Or maybe the employee was 'fairly' compensated?
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
according to the article If Netflix Fanatic's developer showed that he developed the application independently from his work and resources at Apple, and that the application does not relate to Apple's R&D efforts, he may have a case under that section of the California Labor Code.
If the developer has to "show" the independence then he has to prove a negative. Seems winning with this law is impossible.
Anyone else click this article thinking Apple was claiming a patent on shareware? Maybe I've been reading /. too long. Maybe I'm still not used to the editors deliberately allowing sensational headlines.
Nosce te Ipsum
Or is this Steve "O, he of the fetid monkey dance" Ballmer?
--- Ban humanity.
Read the Labor Code:
Yes it does say that if a company has an employment agreement with provisions saying employees must assign the rights of their inventions to their employer, those sections do not apply if the employee developed it on his or her own time, without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
1. Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
2. Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
This is the part deleted by whoever submitted the story.
Evan Brown used to work for DSC Communications and ran into the same problem.
Except in Evan's case, he had his idea before he ever went to work for DSC and until ordered by the judge, it remained an idea, not an invention. The judge ordered him to develop it for DSC without pay.
Check out Evan's web site on the issue
this isn't a story about apple so much as a story about employees rights to the fruits of their labor.
lysergically yours
Does this put Apple among Big Evil Inc. conglomerate or is this OK because it's Apple?
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
This is how apple started, the inventors company didnt want the rights to it. SO they went ahead and started Apple Computer. GO figure.
While for obvious reasons Apple would have liked to keep this quiet, there's as little information to show they were wrong as there is to show that they were right. There's a fair chance he used Apple-given computers to develop this, or that he used 'trade secrets' or information he learned while working at Apple, and that the dispute amounted to them pointing this out and him saying 'What are you talking about?'
Don't get me wrong - I hate the thought that what I work on on my own time would get claimed. But we really have no way of knowing for certain that the developer was on the right side of the law.
R: That voice. Where have I heard that voice before? B: In about 365 other episodes. But I don't know who it is either.
As I sit rewriting a contract with a vendor, I am reminded of the two purposes of contracts:
(1) To clearly outline the rights and responsibilities of all parties. By putting these things in writting, you force yourself to really analyse just what it is you are agreeing to.
(2) To establish a legally defensable position in court. Should the two parties have a disagreement about any of the conditions set forth in the contract, the contract is used to "remind" them of just what they agreed to.
So for all those who say Apple should leave him alone or should buy it from him or whatever, they are considerably late to the party. If in fact the employment contract stated the rules clearly, (no company time or equipment) and he wilfully violated that agreement, then the options become:
(1) Submit to Apple, or
(2) Find a providion of the contract which Apple violated, allowing room for a counter suit, negotiation of a new contract, or possibly having the contract thrown out.
IANAL
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Also, the word is pseudonym.
Here's a helpful reference site
"without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities"
... or even a company pen.
My guess is that Apple would win a lawsuit. They probably caught him using his company ibook.
- Jk.
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/info-mac/app/netflix- fanatic-114.hqx
IANAL etc, but perhaps California law is responsible here. I don't know what "relates to" or "results from" mean in this context, but it might just mean you can't build on information you acquired from work even if that information is widely available, and you did it in your own time and on your own machine. This is a reason for criticising Californian laws, not Apple.
I thought it has alway been third party developers up to this point. This is different because the victim is an Apple employee.
Does the CA Section 2870 law apply if you are an employee of a company (Apple) but have incorporated your software company in a different state or even a different country?
Why would it matter that I could manage rentals offline? Does it really take that long to delete or add a rental when logged on? How many rentals would I really have? Doesn't it make 0.0 % sense to manage rentals offline, assuming that once all those people log back on, there's gonna be a huge jockeying for position in renting whatever they elected to rent the next time they log on?
This shouldn't be that fantastic of an app. If Apple can't just whip this app out in one day, something is seriously wrong.
stuff |
By reading this posting, you implicitly agree that all code you have written in the past, are writing now and in the future belongs to me. I would appreciate it if you just zipped up all your code and sent it along. Thanks.
Mods missing a sense of humor?
If you are a salaried employee, you don't have your own creative time, you signed an intelectual property agreement that effectively states that you are leasing your creative capacity to your employeer.
I think it is horrible and evil, but I signed one too, because I wanted to eat and have a roof over my head...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Are you crazy?! How dare you say something like that about Apple!!!! (I would put in more exclamation marks but I'm affraid you might lable me as Apple Fanatic WHICH I AM NOT -- notice the caps). I'm very objective. I hate Microsoft. I don't understand Linux. Mac is the best! Don't bash Mac you morons.
Seems like they behave just as badly as that other, bigger monopoly. And they want even tighter control, even over the hardware.
Why not just "buy" it from him. Give him ~$10K for the rights, plus make him lead on it. He gets paid to work on something he was doing for fun. They could avoid the bad PR. Surely, even ~$50K isn't much for a peice of code like this that will help sell the OS.
Stupid move. If you piss off the people that work for you, it DOES affect your bottom line.
Andrew
Spell check? Why bother. That is what grammer/spelling Nazi freaks who waiste band width posting "spell right" are for.
...I thought Apple was out trying to patent the concept of Shareware.
--- It's not my fault this post looks redundant. I just type too slow.
Netflix Fanatic 1.1.4 mirrored here. Note that it's only for Mac OS X.
Someone get a torrent going...
Seen any BadMarketing lately?
Does anyone else find this funny since Apple basically got started because HP waivered their right to Woz's personal computer idea.
simular (smy-lr, -l?r) Archaic
n.
One that simulates; a pretender.
adj.
Simulated; sham.
instead of shareware, he wouldn't be in this mess now.
not only is this guy a wicked 1337 OSX coder, but he thinks Leonardo Decaprio is totally k-rad dude; check out the online zine: Totally Decapriated its soooo awwwesome.
I won't say the law isn't ridiculous, but surely Apple bears some responsibility. The law itself didn't force them to claim ownership, it merely provided them with the possibility. The fact that they actually went through with it is just as bad as companies screaming DMCA violation every time someone does something with their products they didn't think of.
Hee-hee. Dying tickles!
It's interesting how many people I see 'soft pedaling' this because it's Apple Computer doing it.
If this was Microsoft doing this, there would already by 700 comments and the Slashdot site would be bogged down and unresponsive because of the fury.
This is dangerous stuff, folks. If this is a precedent, then all the employers of people who have contributed to the Linux kernal, and to various GPL's and BSD licensed products can step forward and claim their chunk of code, too.
It's dismaying that so many 'Apple Loyalists' have joined in on the Slashdot 'Anything Microsoft Does is Eeeevile but any other company is okay' choir. We don't need a 'new master, same as the old master' ascending to power, but some here seem to think it would be okay.
A Good Intro to NetBS
I'm still boycotting Atari Breakout!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
I interviewed for Apple a few months back. My biggest question on the interview was what happens to the software I have developed. My interviewer told me that any software you develop on you own time has to be shown to Apple before you release it. They can evaluate it decided whether or not they want to have it. This may not be cool, but they are very upfront about it. Also, if you push hard enough before you sign your contract, you can probably get a waiver signed for this clause (at least that is what i was told). Point is, his contract had this information in it.
There are obvious efforts on Slashdot by different parties to discredit certain companies they don't like. You see it with Apple. You see it with Microsoft.
What is funny is all the cockroaches that crawl out of the woodwork when it happens and jump right in with rants and raves that are totally misinformed.
Biases... I wish there were more open-minded and self-thinking individuals in the world.
So that means Apple's bad today, right?
I half expect to see a post praising Sony in a couple of hours--wait, no, Sony's only good on Tuesday afternoon in odd months. My error.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
Recap:
This list is beginning to get lengthy.
Most software is produced by organizations that you probably shouldn't trust, staffed by people that you probably wouldn't like.
Why would anyone pay a shareware fee for a program to manage his Netflix queue? Is it so hard to just start a browser?
As a software engineer every employment ofer I have ever signed has stated that anything I code while an employee of the company is property of the company. Unless you ask to have the company's employment offer ratified for you I would bet that 905 of programmers are in the same position.
I like things that are sweet and not things that are lame. --
I suppose they learned this behavior from M$. Sad, really.
"Stop whining!" - Arnold, as Mr. Kimble
OverlyBroadIntellectualPropertyAgreements discusses exactly this sort of problem.
The "Fine Arts Waiver" described on the page is definitely something I will not work without. With some companies it's just a matter of asking for it.
Sunlit World Scheme. Weird and different.
I mean, really, this story is just rampant speculation. The story is published on a rumor site, for Christ's sake.
Would editors of an online news source post a political story that links to an article they read on the Drudge Report? Or a sports story that links to an article on an online betting site? Come on Slashdot, how about some higher standards for your front page.
Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign or offer to assign any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall NOT apply to an invention for which no equipment, supplies, facility or trade secret information of the employer was used
According to commonly used EULAs, wouldn't Mac OS X itself be considered "trade secret information of the employer"?
Will I retire or break 10K?
Section 2870 does *NOT* protect you if you're a software developer. Check out sub section 1. It includes an exemption for the company if your invention relates at the time of conception .... to the employer's business.
There has to be some limit to what can be claimed here.
If you're a writer at your day-job does that mean that any other work you might do would prohibit the usage of the written word, lest you cede ownership to your employer?
If you're a telemarketer, does that prevent you from using the telephone in the course of any outside business?
I suspect a judge would not find restraints on any of the above to be acceptible, and, if not, writing code on a computer at both your day job and on the weekend should follow the pattern.
Now, if this guy was writing a Mail program for Apple and a Mail program on his own time, that would be a conflict, but a screen-scraper for DVD rentals is pretty different than a Mail program.
Another danger with loose interpretation of the law would be in the phrase, "relates...to the employer's business". With the ever increasing presense of mega-conglomorates, if you work for one, conceivably anything you could possibly do in life is done by an employee somewhere in the conglomorate. So, interpreting the law narrowly would put the employee in a position pretty close to indentured servitude.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
...if he had just published it as freeware rather then shareware.
I'm not saying that Shareware is bad, it's a good way for striving developers to make a living/financially support their project.
But if he smelt impending doom, wouldn't publishing it be better then letting it be 'borgified' by a mindless corporation?
Sometimes I wish I was a plumber, then I'd know how to deal with other people's shit.
Apple did this with STICKY NOTES ! (famous ripoff)
http://www.mooseyard.com/Jens/Worker.Offer.html
After much public outcry they gave the guy a 10,000 dollar one-time bonus and added it to the OS.
poor Jen Alfke
this is not the first time this ever happened!!!
(I wish people modded posts like this on slashdot nowadays.)
At what point does this become the same as slavery? If everything you do is owned by the company you work for, and you can not compete in the same field for x years- are you not effectively a slave? Arguing that such contracts are a form of slavery would invalidate the contract (if sucessfull).
On a slightly different note, is willfully violating the Constitution connote an act of treason? That would be a big stick to settle out of court. To my knowledge, treason is the only section of the federal criminal code to cary the death penalty.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Let's save our outrage for when Free Software is threatened.
I work as an independent contractor. One of the tests the IRS will use to validate independent contractor status is having more than one client at a time. Starting a few years ago all of the contracts I'd was given contained language that said everything I do belongs to them. I always cross this out and they always say the wording applies only to the work I do on their nickel.I tell them that's fine with me but it needs to be written that way. They always rewrite it in a way I'm comfortable with.
A company owning someone's ideas is absurd. It is even more absurd that such arguments are crawling through the legal system.
In that light, I find it particularly ironic that the ideas in question seem no more original than the decompiler concepts that have been around forever. Seems like a big fuss over nothing.
*Every* company wishes it was Microsoft.
--- Ban humanity.
Today is Tuesday in an odd month.
Got to love them.
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
This wasn't even my post, but for fuck's sake, that was a joke, not a troll. Stop being so goddamn sensitive. Get a life. Get laid. Get something.
As I recall, Steve Wozniak was under a similar arrangement with HP when he developed the Apple I. If HP did then what Apple is doing now, Apple would not even exist!
It's what I did.
Crossed them out, initialled and dated the modifications and then signed the contract and gave it back to my employer. There have been no problems, I'm still employed, so they've accepted the modified terms without question.
You don't think they actually read the contract after you've signed it do you? They just sign it and file it. You could demand all sorts of stuff in there.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
He may have written it on his own time but I bet you he wrote it using knowledge and tools he wouldn't have had if he wasn't an employee of apple.
It all depends upon what his employee agreement says. I'm sure there is a clause in there about inventions and ownership. He probably didn't bother to read it and just signed it without thinking. Sucks to be him, maybe he'll remember this when he needs to sign another one.
"Apple Claims Ownership of Shareware" suggests that Apple is claiming ownership of the shareware concept.
/. `editors' suck.
"Apple Claims Ownership of Shareware Title" is more accurate but gives little sense of what the story is actually about.
"Apple Claims Ownership of Employee's Shareware Title" is optimal.
i.e. the
Interestingly enough, I tried to open the website to remind myself in which network their IRC channel is (so I could have a chat with Rob Braun on how he feels about it), but the opendarwin.org is down.
This story was posted on Mac boards at least a month ago.
Please consider obtaining my freeware app, Beholder, a fast, programmable, web image search frontend. It kicks Sherlock's current image searching channel's keister. I know I'm not an employee, so it'll cost you -- but isn't Sherlock worth it?
(yeah, yeah, okay -- a shameless plug...)
Old, this was on Ars a month ago.
Slashdot = -1 Redundant, Asperger, kdawson FUD, Libertarian, and Linux
I heard from a homeless guy on the street who said he was dumpster diving near the Apple campus, where he overheard Jobs talking loudly on a cell phone about some "big plan to integrate Netflix into 10.4 thereby completing their nefarious conspiracy to force users to upgrade to the next revision of OS X...We'll trick those bastards yet..."
Needless to say, Jobs noticed the guy eavesdropping, and immediately hired him to work on an up-and-coming Apple branded PDA/cell phone...
We apologise for the fault in this post. Those responsible have been sacked. -- Signed RICHARD M. NIXON
Ironic that the initial formation of Apple was initially threatened because Woz was working for HP when he invented the Apple I! A supervisor at HP inspected the Apple I and deemed it insignificant enough as to not be a threat...
It seems that this kind of activity is common with Apple, let the developers write their own stuff then STEAL IT! Let's just say that I'm not chomping at the bit to work there.
I suppose that under extreme situations and financial difficulties I would consider it - I'm not that hardcore - but most people that are qualified to work at Apple are probably more than qualified to work almost anywhere else.
Given their track record, do they expect that their employees will be happy to go out and write more software for the Mac? This is the kind of stupidity that Apple has always suffered from... make a cool computer, but go out of your way to prevent anyone from doing anything with it. IT'S OURS DAMMIT! HANDS OFF! Meanwhile Micro$oft has made billions by attracting developers to their platform. How do they not understand that it's all about the apps?
A. More apps = more sales.
B. More sales = more money.
C. Stealing shareware = less apps.
How complicated is it?
My employment contract says that everything I write either at work or at home technically belongs to my employer. I can understand that to some extent. While working at an employer you are learning. Can you guarantee that anything you write has not benefitted from knowledge gained while working for you current employer. So such clauses are covering this benefit.
I don't know about the application in question but if there's the possibility it could not have been written by someone other than an employee of Apple even though the author did not use Apple tools or time then Apple does have some rights over it.
It strikes me the guy should have checked his rights first. I discussed this when I joined my company and was told that provided I haven't written anything which is simliar to, or competes with, company products then I should still get approval for open source releases and the like but they would probably be let through on the nod.
He could have been sued by Netflix also. Since he wanted to go shareware and therefore charge for this is was basically going to be making money off of the netflix name without netflix's permission. Does this guy have any clue about the legal side of this world?
Would ...an online news source post a political story that links to an article they read on the Drudge Report?
Sure. Go to news.google.com and check out their links. They do this all the time.
With a site like news.google.com, this can be tremendously useful. They give you links to all the reports on a story that their search bots can find. You can compare them and make up your own mind. You can have fun pointing out the differences in the ways that different news sources spin the story. You can compare the facts with the editorial spin. And so on. If they only gave links to purportedly "objective" news sites, you couldn't research the different ways that the media reports a story.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Why does anyone act surprised when they show their corporate stripes?
Let's say instead of a shareware app (which sounds pretty useful to me) the guy wrote a destructive email worm that only works on Mac platorms. He writes this on his own time on his own equipment in another country, then releases it to tear up a bunch of marketing companies (who have a high saturation of Mac platforms).
He "owns" that code (and maybe some computers too).
Did he commit the crime? Or did Apple Corp. commit the crime? After all, they own his ass and everything he does or creates, they have the right to financially exploit his artwork, code, writings or anything else. That means he should not get in trouble and Apple Corp. should.
Sorry, but no company owns anything not directly related to the job without prior written contractual agreement (and additional financial compenstation). Anything less is slavery, and as my example above should prove it's also obsurd.
Apple is a big company, so I suppose they have their fair share of clueless lawyers and PHBs so moronic attempts to trample on people's individual rights can be expected.
That doesn't mean they are any less a bunch of assholes for the attempt though. The assholes.
So only unregistered, unpaid copies should be in the wild (the guy is a real ID-10-T if he releases the source at this juncture...wouldn't be prudent.). I don't know if it's crippleware (only runs for 30 minutes, or manages 50 rentals, till you pay up); if it isn't I wouldn't be surprised if Apple makes it so shortly.
Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored. - Aldous Huxley
To be honest I can't think of a good reason why you shouldn't be able to develop applications that relate to your employer's business in your own time, with your equipment, as long as the code you use is not copied from the projects you do for your employer (copyrights are used to prevent this from happening). Ideas can't be patented and are not protected by copyright, so I'm really having a bad time trying to figure out why this exception has been inserted there.
Unfortunately it seems this law is not so useful for us poor software developers.
Diego Rey
diegoT
-- Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak
Quite. If this guy had used Gentoo, with the -m686mmx -fomit-royalties flags set, he'd have got an increase of at least 5-10% in salary from Apple.
As an employee at a swedish university, I appreciate the swedish laws on the subject:
I own the copyright on everything, even the stuff I do at work.
I even own the patent rights if I invent anything, even if I did it within a government funded university project.
(If you receive private funding, you probably have a contractual agreement waiving some or all of your patent rights, though)
How about that?
The contracts generally cover everything, but many states, California included, expressly limit what the contract can actually cover. If you work in that state, labor laws for that state take precedence over whichever state the company might be incorporated in, etc.
Since, he did this in his off hours, using his own resources (and the "Improving MacOS" line is BS- did he make a CDEV or DA? No? Then he didn't "improve" Apple's product as it was sold, etc.)- California labor law says it is HIS Copyright, not Apples. They can't demand for it, legally. It's not "not contributing to the company" as you put it. What Apple's doing is no different than the attempted IP grab SCO's trying to do with Linux or someone trading songs on Kazaa or similar.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
http://www.angryflower.com/itsits.gif
:(
I don't even have the karma to burn on this.
Karma: Chameleon (Mostly affected by the 1980s)
I got one of my previous employers to explicitly declare seven different projects as being not covered, even on company time, because they were Open Source projects that I was working on when they hired. Combine that with the "my time is mine, not theirs" added in for good measure and I consider that a win.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Bill Gates
http://www.oblon.com/Pub/display.php?hudis-7071
Saying that they're in the business of making software doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. What KIND of software? If it's not in the same line of business, it's definitely NOT theirs. If it is, but is something that they'd not have done (and this CAN be proven pretty well...) then it's also not theirs.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
A good article with info about "made for hire" status including software, with legal references is here:
http://www.oblon.com/Pub/display.php?hudis-7071
It has references of cases fom many states.
That's much fun is it?
He may have written it on his own time but I bet you he wrote it using knowledge and tools he wouldn't have had if he wasn't an employee of apple.
Are you seriously claiming they own his KNOWLEDGE ?
(It remains to be seen if tools owned by Apple were used or not.)
Even IF he was some homeless uneducated slob before he got the job and they taught him how to comb and wash his hair and how to program they do not OWN diddly. He might take on training and agree to stay X months afterwards or something, but owning someone like that is _slavery_.
Facists like you give Apple wannabee fans a bad name. No wonder I hate them so much.
Try telling that to somebody with 100 times more money to spend on lawyers than you have, who could just filibuster the proceedings until you are forced to settle because you can no longer pay your counsel.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I hate shady ass tactics like this ... shady bastards
I've been an engineer for 22 years and I have run up against these kinds of agreements over and over.
The first thing I try is to cross out the offending language, initial it and have the HR rep initial it. However, most companies won't agree to this. In that case I say that I can't work here under those conditions. Some companies just let it slide and I worked there anyway. In two cases I walked away form the job offer.
If everyone refused to sign these kinds of agreements, they wouldn't exist. Do us all a favor, have some spine and just say no!
Rob:-]
So I guess this makes Apple evil like Microsoft?
Now all we need is a couple of Linux vendors to do the same and 1/2 of you people won't have MS to bash anymore.
You're all a bunch of dumbassess.
Yea! This is my first mod 5 comment in weeks. The past 20 or so comments I have made have just fallen by the way side I guess. Or, something is wrong with slashdot.
Cricket doesn't work for Apple, his their bitch. My advice is to escape to a better place.
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
You sell out everyone when you buckle to this kind of pressure.
Whether you like it or not is not relevent. If he willingly signed his employee contract stating that they own him, then they own him.
If by being an employee of apple one learns tricks and more intimate details on how the OS works in order to get the most speed out of the system then that knowledge is owned by apple. It's trade secrets that may not be available to just the general os x programmer. Apple owns that knowledge. If you use it outside of Apple without their permission they can come after you if they don't want it out. Don't know why they would do this but in theory they could.
Oh and stop being so dramatic about slavery and all that. Way to blow things out or proportion.
No one cares about morale, and a company taking over an employee's work, even if it wasn't done with a shred of that company's resources, is the norm.
My wife is always amazed at this. She feels that it is intellectual slavery. I agree with her, but, unfortunately, this is reality.
An article on Think Secret reveals the reason behind it's mysterious disappearance.
/..
Contrary to popular belief, "its" and "it's" are NOT interchangeable. "It's" is equal to "it is."
See here for an illustrated explanation of this.
I know this post is offtopic; this is elementary-school level grammar though. Having misplaced "it's"s all over the place doesn't speak well for
So you're saying that the only way to learn how to program apps for the Mac, the only way to get GCC for the Mac, and/or the only way to get the Mac hardware is to work at Apple? I seriously doubt it. Besides, even if he did learn the basics of (say) OS X application programming at Apple, that doesn't give Apple automatic ownership of anything he might create for OS X. If for his Netflix app he used knowledge, tools, and/or hardware that was only available to Apple employees, then yes, your argument is valid; but the mere fact of his employment by Apple doesn't prove any of that.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
And if you read the law BEYOND the part that was quoted, you'll see that the mandatory exclusion of transfer of rights DOESN'T cover this situation.
This work would appear to "relate at the time [...] to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer". Apple does consumer multi-media software apps for their own platform. An app to "manage rented media queues" would seem to most reasonable people to be clearly "related" to that business.
The inventor can protest all he wants that it was done on his own time with his own tools and it doesn't matter. Unless he can convince a judge or jury otherwise, 2870. (a) 1 says that 2870. (a) doesn't apply. So his contract to assign his inventions to Apple is valid.
Apple's view is that they already PAID him for this program. If they let him give it away when they could be selling it (or sitting on it for their own business reasons), they're not just letting him take something that they paid him for. They're also jepoardizing their ownership of EVERYTHING ELSE they paid their employees to do. So why are they paying all these people all this money?
Sounds to me like the situation is this:
1) Guy builds a neat software app and, misunderstanding the situation or thinking that Apple is not interested, thinks it's allright to release and/or sell it on his own.
2) Apple says "Wait a minute! We paid you to give stuff like that to US!"
3) Guy says "Oops! You're right!" and pulls the app.
4) Media finds this out and mentions it.
5) Slashdot reader doesn't recognize that the exception in 2870 (a) 1 applies, so he thinks that it's an assault on open source and composes a post saying so.
6) Slashdot editor posts the new item essentially verbatim.
and the flap is on.
2870. is the engine of California's hi-tek booms. By letting inventors keep and develop inventions that are outside their employers' interests and non-competing, it promotes an explosion of inventiveness and startups. But it falls short of giving workers the right to develop potentially competing works that their employer didn't explicitly assign them to create or doesn't wish to pursue at the moment, and didn't give them PERMISSION to take back. Some would even argue that this is deliberate, a necesary provision to avoid killing the succeeding generations of geese just as they start laying the golden eggs.
So let's not misconstrue the law. If the developer decides to press his claim and can show in court that the exception applies, it's his. If he doesn't or can't, it's Apple's. And if you don't like it, get the law changed.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...well, someone had better kill it before it collapses the fragile idea that is this universe into a singularity of nothingness.
--- Ban humanity.
You can still download the application from Cricket Media at the following link: Netflix Fanatic
Someone with lots of bandwidth should mirror this before it's gone.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
You aren't talking about Gleim Publications in Gainesville, Florida, by chance, are you?
Similar story.
http://www.gleim.com/
it isn't flamebait. he makes an interesting point whether you agree with him or not.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance" - Isaac Asimov
That's pretty much what the guy meant with the [...] and this project isn't competing againt business opportunities of his employer [...].
Something is strange here. The linked version of California Labor Code, Section 2870 from the original story has a totally different text as for example the one pasted in another reply to this story. And the differences are really important here: The linked version says that the employer cannot claim rights to the software except for those that either is related to his business or resulted from work performed by the employee for the employer.
The version in the reply has it totally different, it says that the employer cannot claim rights to the software which is not related to his business or did not result from work performed by the employee for the employer.
This are to very different regulations. In the second one your work can be related to the business of your company if you did no do related work. E.g. your company does produce web browsers, but you are hired for creating a database. In this case and the second version you can create a web browser in your own time, and it belongs to you.
In the first version of the law the web browser would belong to your company, as it is sufficient that your company is active in this field.
Sorry, but i'm confused. Which version of the law is the current one, and where does the other one originate from? After all this is a really meaningful difference. Please, can someone bring some insight into this?
One of the consequences of being an exempt employee is that you don't get paid for overtime. IANAL, but it follows pretty logically that pretty much anything you do "at home" might be considered overtime and anything you do during that time belongs to your employer. You may be able to make an argument that that isn't the case if what you do "on your own time" is clearly completely unrelated to your job (e.g., an Apple employee that develops new cookie recipes). But writing a piece of Macintosh software seems pretty job-related for an Apple software engineer.
In any case, this is standard policy at high-tech companies. Of course, it is pretty stupid for a company like Apple to enforce it in a case like this.
But forget about starting up a software business while you are employed somewhere--if you try, you really have to sit down and write a contractual agreement with your employer first, or you have the potential of running into big trouble later on.
Apple's PR department is probably just shaking their heads. Everytime the suits at Apple (Jobs?) pull a stunt like this, it probably blows a huge hole in their promotional budget.
Lets look at some simple options:
1. Offer to buy the program outright. $250,000?
2. Steal it from the creative developer probably under threat of his job, defend it in court, have it appear on Slashdot and allocate another $2.5 million for the PR budget to make us look good.
3. All the goodwill Apple was building with developers to get them to write software -- down the drain; which ultimately means fewer programs for the users.
A lot of crap seems to keep happening around the whole Sherlock program. Does someone need to be spanked? Is it Jobs who is doing this or some clueless lawyer who needs his bonus this week?
Last time, they gave an Apple Developer Design award to the guy who wrote Watson and then completely ripped his idea off the next year and gave it away in Sherlock. The bad PR and extremely negative developer feelings round that debacle was certainly not worth the money.
It continues to amaze me that Jobs will go out and buy Logic to starve out the Windows audio market, but he won't award creative development on his own platform. It's a good thing we like those nice shiny case designs.
"Whether you like it or not is not relevent. If he willingly signed his employee contract stating that they own him, then they own him."
If a clause in a contract is in conflict with a state law, the state wins.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
I would like to point out that Apple does not pay employees to create things or *do* anything.
The idea of employment is thus:
We pay you for your time.
In order to be paid for your time, you must do (x) in the time we are paying you for.
If you do something outside company time and you are not being paid for it, it is common sense that the work is yours.
Here's how things like this work in the UK:
I have a manager that noticed a few problems vetting Independent Financial Advisers within our company, so he set up a company and systems for vetting IFAs on-line. Under californian law, this would be the property of our respective employers (especially as it is now a fundamental part of our business). The system of which I speak is practically the definition of parts (1) and (2).
Yet our employer has no rights to it.
Why? Because it's stealing. Innovation and improvement are not caused by large companies getting their hands on everything their employees create. Even Apple does not have the vision or creativity to drive every big development.
"Apple... let it go!"
--Nick
I'd like to take advantage of this topic to ask /.ers a very general question about Apple policy regarding softwares.
I've noticed that many of readers here seem to appreciate Apple as much as Linux. However, I do not understand why. Let me explain.
Despite the fact that Apple is very successful with its hardware, and for some good reasons indeed - they make very nice computers, and have a quite clever way of dealing with IT marketing - I still do not understand why anyone did not revolt yet against the fact that Apple is rewarding their audience by making them pay the upgrade of a FreeBSD-based platform for (I think some will become angry with my statement...) 129 USD (you might just have noticed that I didn't take into account the 'free' upgrade that allows you to benefit from Panther if you purchased a Mac after October the 8th, which is two weeks before the official release ; indeed it would have been beyond the human limits of decency).
As every geek, I'm interested in aesthetics. This is why I own an iPod. A windows iPod that I make run on Linux. But again this is deceiving.
I've been using an older 5 Gb iPod on a friend's iMac, it was working *so* well. But the present one is all the more buggy with every day passing.
It may sounds weird, but my point is that Apple is taking advantage of its position of Windows' crusher, alongside with Linux and others (just look how clever it was from a marketing point of view to use a free platform). But in my opinion Apple is far far far away from the Linux community's state of mind. How can free-minded persons visit Apple Web Site and not be shocked by the understatement "The Best OS in The World ?" How can the GNU/Linux community allows, without saying a word, a multinational to take advantage of what has been built over for so many years ? How can Mac users keep waiting hours for a software that is overrated, both on financial and on technical points of view ?
The late misfortunes I had with my so beloved iPod made me realise that Apple developpers might not be so good as they appear to be. Again, one could answer that the FreeBSD license is completely free, and that maybe I'm not well informed of the very philosophical core of the problem. But even on a commercial plan, I've seen nothing worse than Apple business plan. They make good, not great, softwares, and they make you pay something about three time the price you would be able to bear for Microsoft XP, which is at last, a respectable OS.
My step-father did buy a 15'' G4 last year. We made comparisons between Linux, XP, OS9 and OSX. Despite the fact that my step-father is part of the strong community that is blindly backing up Apple choices, we were both compelled to acknowledge that - yes, yes- his G4 when running Mac OS X was beaten by WinXP running on my Centrino 1,3 Ghz, 512 RAM, slow IDE disk, when making graphic processing with Photoshop. When switching back to Mac OS 9, of course Mac was eventually faster. Not fast enough for Linux and the Gimp, but this is another problem.
These are just thoughts in the air. And I would be glad if some good soul could give me some answers about the ever-growing support, amongst the free software community, for Apple, no matter the orientations.
Regards,
Jdif
Let's overcome our weakness.
Still, I think your interpretation is overboard. Just saying that Apple is a software company, therefore all employee software is owned does not cut it for me. Care to point to some case law that makes things as obvious as you say they are?
It's good to have this little talk periodically. You can line out sections of any contract you don't like and leave it up to the company to ammend it. The decision to work or not to work for people who think they own you is a personal one, but you owe it to yourself to see what kind of a company you are dealing with. If they refuse to ammend your contract, they are rigid and you might not be happy there.
Revolt. Free software gives us the power to refuse because you can earn a living with it without the help of a company that's way too powerful for comfort.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Expecting bonuses and a paycheck for doing your job...that you agreed to do for only the paycheck. Sounds like a bad idea. This is one thing wrong with the RIAA/MPAA business model - residuals may spur innovation, but they suppress sales if structured incorrectly.
Not long ago, I made some changes that saved my employer in excess of $500,000 per year...but my paycheck covered this activity, so I certainly couldn't expect an _ex post facto_ bonus.
Greed is good as a motivator, but the motivation comes as anticipation BEFORE the act, and it must be uniformly applied.
Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. Jon Krakauer
The funniest thing about Stickies is how you end up with a huge disorderly pile of them on your desktop, and they all have vitally important information on them, if you could just remember the context!
Just like real Post-Its.
Now I wish someone would come up with a way to put Stickies all over my documents so other people could be as lost and confused as I am, just like in the old MegaCorp office....
Oh, wait...
This Like That - fun with words!
Amazing how someone can write a thinly veiled advert for Apple's software in an article about Apple stealing some guys code and the /. moderator drones give it +4 Insightful. Next time there is an article about some bad thing Microsoft is doing I will see how far I get with my comment extolling the virtues of Visual Studio.
Good think you added the contract exception, otherwise they might have claimed your first born ;)
Ben in DC
"It's the mark of an educated mind to be moved by statistics" Oscar Wilde
So how broadly had that provision been interpreted in past case law?
Software is a strange beast. It may not seem like it to the outside world, but it's an incredibly broad range of problems. In some sense, software is just a logical arrangement of thought. It's hard to argue that your employer has the right to limit your thoughts, particularly on your own time, regardless of topic.
So is software treated as a monolithic field in case law? Or is it broken into more reasonable segments?
Is it typical for Apple to screw over their employees? Or is this a strange aberation?
All your IP are belong to us.
You are the 1 BILLIONTH purveyor of the above joke. And, as a bonus, you got both the "Most Predictable" and "Most Inevitable" endorsements to your Lifetime Acheivment Award from the Humor Academy of Soviet Russia, where the award awards YOU! Join me, as I, for one, welcome our new Soviet Humor Masters. All that is left is for you to:
1. Accept award
2. ???
3. PROFIT!
(All profits property of SCO, Inc.)
...of one of our 'town meetings' at Midway Games, LLC. To quell any doubts about intellectual property (game ideas, inventions, etc..) then CEO Neil Nicastro remarked "We own your dreams.". Basically, any ideas you have while employed at Midway are owned by Midway. Needless to say, people generally kept their ideas to themselves until they had safely left the company. I wouldn't say this practice stiffles innovation at all, I hear Mortal Kombat 7 is coming along just fine..
TallGreen CMS hosting
Damn right! I'll write my letter now, and then things will be set straight. Oh, wait, you meant to say that I should believe so strongly that I sacrifice years and thousands of dollars to lobby a law in a state that caters to the industry in question? Thank god for democracy, I guess.
========
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
I think I'll stick to my OSX, thank you very much. I have never been able to get gentoo to fully install with everything. FreeBSD is much easier to get working then gentoo and it isn't GPL.
I hope he's learned his lesson. All the private-time code I write is not attributed directly to *me*, but to my friends who have no relation to my employer and don't even actually code.... otherwise, I'm basically working unpaid overtime without even knowing I'm giving my free time to the company! I wised up to this scam a long time ago. I'm willing to code in my own time on a free software project that I'm passionate about, but I'm not interested in seeing my work get rolled into another watered-down corporate monopolization bundling attempt as is happening here.
The more interesting question, however, is the legal status of the code were it licensed under the GPL in this situation. I've heard an interesting strategy mentioned by some business acquaintances who are very threatened by the GPL and are interested in subverting it by whatever means necessary (back-doors in the kernel sound familiar?). One of their ideas for corrupting the GPLed code base (which is their eventual goal, in order to destroy Free Software) is to code a great deal for major free software projects, license it under the GPL, and then announce that they had coded it while at work and using their employers equipment. This would instantly transfer the ownership to the corporation, who could then announce that the original coder had *no legal authority* to put the software under the GPL against their wishes. This would create massive trouble for the FSF and Linux projects in general if done correctly. And trust me, it is the intention of these corporate killers to do it correctly.
I know I'm incredibly unpopular here at Slashdot, but ignore my warnings at your own peril. Think it through and come to your own conclusions as to the possibilities I'm revealing. The battle is not between Microsoft/Apple/Linux, it is between OpenSource/Proprietary. Think about it. The lines have been drawn and the battle is on, though most Slashdotters don't even know it yet. And unfortunately, most don't even care.
I think they could have had a case under the contract as it was originally written!
Basically what I said to them was, "If interpreted strictly, this contract means that you own any poems that I write, and that I can't teach the karate classes I do on some evenings and weekends. Now, I sure that that's not your intent, but I can only go by what's written here, so let's come up with an addendum that makes that clear, ok?" There was no problem getting them to agree.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
To scare the workers, sometimes it is enforced. Just look at the case of the Ubisoft 5 - a programmer and some artists who dared to leave Ubisoft and join EA (in Montreal), and are currently being told by the courts that they are not allowed to work.
IIRC The decision decades ago was that the law could not compel someone to personally perform a service (which would be slavery), but could stop them from doing so (via an injunction).
As much as I believe yes, he did it at home, on his own time, with his own equipment, not using apple trade-secret knowledge, it should be his, not Apples... there is one point.
In a situation like this, even if you really believe you are in the clear, if you are a software developer for company X and you develop some software, on your own, at home, that fits in the same market that company X writes for, you would be very, very smart to ASK first, and get it in writing.
It still sucks, but it's good advice for the future.
Furthermore... What is wrong with apple. Make sure the employee DID do it completely on his own, not on work time, or using work resources, at least for the vast majority, I mean, don't penalize him because he brought it to work to show someone one day and ran it on a company computer.... and BUY it off him.
IT also depends on his job.. was his job to innovate and just design new stuff for Apple as he saw fit? Was he paid to work from home as well? Should he have known better?
Apple should have done the right thing, and bought it off him anyway.
My employment contract says that everything I write either at work or at home technically belongs to my employer. I can understand that to some extent. While working at an employer you are learning. Can you guarantee that anything you write has not benefitted from knowledge gained while working for you current employer. So such clauses are covering this benefit.
Excuse me? So can I demand compensation from my employer for all of the years of my education, family life, character-building lessons, etc because they've benefitted from all of that in my current position and obviously I haven't been paid for those things! Get your lemming head out of your A$$, we will all end up as slaves with this kind of lazy submissive attitude. Yes there are these ridiculous clauses in employment agreements, but you're a joke if you knowingly sign on to such drivel. A job is a job, it pays the bills. They don't OWN YOU.
... and Apple subsequently claimed the code,
can they un-GPL it? Or must the code remain GPL?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If the software author was an employee of the company (as opposed to a sub-contractor) and the terms of his employment didn't have any specitic stipulations as to the ownership of work he may have created on his so-called oft-time, he will have a difficult time proving he owns the rights. This is generally the way it is throughout the country.
I've been on both sides of the fence. I've developed award-winning Shareware, and also employed people who goofed off and created product they thought they owned on my time. If you are writing new software and you are an employee of a company, if you want to retain the rights to your work, you should reach an agreement with your employer. All your company has to do is show something like a) you're a salaried employee and you have in the past done work at home for the company, or b) examine the date/time stamp on anything that you're claiming you own and if it's on "company time", you're busted.
In most states, if you are a sub-contractor and not a formal employee, in the absence of specific arragements regarding the ownership of IP, the laws tilt in your favor. But this goes out the window if you are a formal employee.
It might suck for this author, but the reality of the situation is regardless of whether he autonomously developed the product without company resources, his employer subsidized the effort directly or indirectly. If he had dreams of becoming a software mogul, he should have changed his status to a sub-contractor or requested acknowledgement of his IP before going very far.
Can't mod this, but I like it. It's devious. It's legal. And it will piss off your bosses without breaking your contract. What's not to like?
He should have just distributed in his wife's name claiming she wrote it. Then Apple wouldn't have had a leg to stand on...
So let's ask some simple questions.
If Apple can't demonstrate either of these things, it's hard to argue that they already paid him for the work, in which case the guy appears to have a legitimate grievance.
Legally speaking, the phrase "the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer" seems to place the burden of proof firmly on Apple: they have to show that they were doing, or definitely going to do, something along the same lines.
At this point, it's up to the legal system to interpret the relevant law given the specifics of the case. Of course, whether one man can hope to fight a legion of Apple lawyers within the current legal climate of the US is a different question, but the theory is sound.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
You make a very excellent point here. Done properly it would be possible to polute the GPL codebase.
However... if it were proven that this was actually planned then we would be in a situation where a fraud had been perpetrated and this would negate the transfer of the copyright.
In my mind the only way to avoid this risk would be to demand that anyone contributing to the GPL code base actually is in a legal position to do so. This might include a written declaration of one's employment status. If the person lies on the declaration we have proof of fraud. If the person declares he or she is an employee of XYZ corporation then we need to get a release from them.
One thing to realise is that the depth in the Open Source Community is so great that any poisonous code would be removed within hours.
Also... in a way we see this attack taking place right now... Isn't this what SCO is up to?
one full-time job and one part-time job (or maybe two part-time jobs).
Whether or not the two jobs are related does not matter.
Let's say they both have the usual boilerplate agreement in their contract about things you create off-hours.
You sign both contracts (without checking if you can cross-out / alter / initial anything you don't agree with).
You invent / create something on your own time.
Both employers want to claim it.
Who gets it?
before trying to sell software if you have clauses like that in your contract.
The way I am thinking about it is that a incorported company is considered to be another person. If you do work for another company on your own time is it still thought of in the same way legally?
Of course if you have non-compete clauses in your contract this may not work, but that might be easier to get around than the whole "my company develops software of some sort so I can't develop any software at all if i want to own it" sitution.
Ceres
The law is the law, and supercedes any contracts. If the law says apple doesn't own this code, then they don't. Besides, this guy didn't try to sell the software back to apple, he tried to sell it to customers directly. How is it 'extortion' to write your own code, on your own time, and sell it to people?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Does anyone remember Antler Software? They developed the program that eventually became Stickies when Apple decided it could be useful.
In the Classic version, there's a famous easter egg that if you made a new sticky note and typed "Antler!" (without the quote) and pressed 'Enter', the logo for the software company would be printed in the sticky.
When I got a job at Blockbuster, I had to sign an agreement saying I would not work at another video store for a certain amount of time. IANAL, but I am told they can't really enforce that.
There's a lot of stuff that you agree to when you take a job, and I don't think people take much of it seriously. When was the last time you read a license agreement before you installed a piece of software?
if HP (I think or maybe it was DEC) had tried the same thing when Wozniak developed the Apple. Kooky.
-
Don't apply to Apple.
We are talking about a peice of shareware, software that you are asked to 'try before you buy', not open source software. There's a pretty big diffrence here. If the developer had actualy GPL'd his code, apple would have a much bigger problem (especialy PR wise)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If I were a company in the area I'd be looking to pinch a few quality people. Who, other than Apple, wouldn't want the kind of guy who codes in his free time and has the motivation and skills to distribute his work?
I think a bushel of their best and brightest just polished their resumes.
Can we get the borg icon placed over the apple logo like there is for Billy Gates?
-Mark
Dovie'andi se tovya sagain.
If you work for a software company and moonlight for another software company on producing non-competing products, does your full time employer own your work you do for the other company? Can your full time employer fire you for working outside the company without their consent? Can they do any worse than fire you?
So lets say I do contract work on side, does that mean my employer owns the source code I did on side? This would also mean I couldn't do part time work or consulting or any other work thats related software.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
What, you mean besides being able to have him prosecuted for fraud in addition to suing him for breach of contract?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Why the hell would you need "Access to apple documentation, OS source," and actual engineers to write that sort of program? That's ridiculous. It's just a simple HTPT client! In order to win a court case, apple would need to prove that he either did it on company time, or used actual trade secrets, or that he knew they were working on something similar.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I used to work as a temp for a company. After some time passed on the project, my boss came with a copy of the so-called "Code of Ethics" which was destined for the full time regular employees, as it started with the words: "you, as an employee-ower..." etc.
When i reviewed the thing, i saw it included a section giving the company full rights and ownership of anything i discovered, invented, or made, even if it wasn't created in company systems, time, or facilities. Basically, it said they owned me for the time of my employment, but since i was a temp, they had absolutely no obligation towards me.
I refused to sign such a document. They kept saying I had to, but I never did.
I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
I'll be much less likely to buy from Apple from now on. (This isn't their first bid for "Evil Overlord of the Century". But the competition is really too steep for them.)
..with a few extra features.) And for that I don't see any decent application in the offing. (It would need to include bitmaps inside vector drawing layers, and have the whole thing divisible into either separate pages or separate frames [with adjustable viewing rates ala Gif animation] and be able to export into various formats, including animated gifs.) I don't see any lead candidate here though. Most of the animation programs have aimed at 3-d modeling, and lost the ability to deal reasonably with 2-d imagery in layers. Yes, I see the power of the approach, but it doesn't do what I need.
Apple keeps being an "almost a good guy..usually". This is superior to MS, but hardly praiseworthy. I sure hope that the applications that I need grow up quickly. OpenOffice.org is an immense step in the right direction. Now I've moved all of my own work to Linux..but my wife still has one application that demands Win95 (I'm expecting RoseGarden to evolve into a good replacement), and has graphic needs that Gimp can't fully meet. (Here I need a replacement for Deneba Canvas..since they appearantly decided not to port to Linux. Think of it as an advanced combination of Gimp [or PhotoShop] and Kontour [or Illustrator]
So until a suitable replacement shows up I'm stuck with selecting the "lesser evil". Until they do something so egregiously evil that I can't buy them anymore even if there *isn't* a replacement.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Apple is run by an egomaniac asshole thief that stole all of "his" revolutionary ideas from Xerox in the first place. So this latest development should really be no surprise to anyone.
First they ignore you Then they laugh at you Then they fight you Then you win -Mohandas Gandhi
So Apple goes to the court and says "Our business is to develop software [to be used on hardware we produce]." This is pretty clear cut. I don't know anyone who would say otherwise.
At which point the judge asks the employee, "Did you develop software to be used on a Mac?"
He says "yes" and the case is closed.
I know it's 'spooky' or whatever, but this is how it is. I've written code that doesn't belong to me, and I bet zillions of other people have too.
Read Heinlein's 1953 Revolt in 2100, now more than ever.
Are there similar laws in other states?
-no broken link
Except that I spoke to the shareware author for this app back when this started weeks ago (before Slashdot picked this up, before the Netflix Fanatic website got recently altered to omit mention of the specific laws), and the author never said, "Oops! You're right!" He pulled the application pending negotiations with his employer's legal department. At the time, I had no idea this guy was working for Apple.
Paraphrasing from the private e-mail that Cricket (the shareware app's author) gave me, he said his employer was making their claims based on 2870 (a) 1, but that this was a sham, and they had no interest other than in putting the application on a shelf and never doing anything with it. Therefore, they're in the wrong. Since the author can't afford to fight this for several reasons, justice will not prevail.
An article on Think Secret reveals the reason behind it's (sic) mysterious disappearance.
When the fuck will people learn the difference between "its" and "it's?" God damn, grade school students should be able to master this.
Was he paid by Apple for all those hours he spent at home writing, testing, and publicising this program?
Apple should have to pay -- including all applicable overtime -- for ever hour he spent on this idea out side of work before they should even consider that they might have some rights to it.
As for Apple themselves, just makes them look worse than ever in my eyes -- not that they likely care.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Someone else already pointed out that this was covered on MacSlash; however, I first saw this covered a little over a month ago on Macintouch. At the time, the author's employer was not revealed. I e-mailed the author, who goes by Cricket, and basically said that I thought he was in the right, and wondered if he'd take a principled stand and leave the company.
In the e-mail response I got, he thanked me and pointed out that his employer was indeed claiming the software as competing against a planned product, but that this was a legal smoke-screen to lay claim to his code. (In the California Labor Code, it's section 2870(a)1, which provides an exception for inventions that "Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer.")
The Think Secret article linked in this Slashdot article suggests that Apple is interested in adding this functionality to their Sherlock application. I'm not sure I believe this.
If the code is preserved and actually used, and if Cricket doesn't lose his job or have bad things done to him to punish him (which some employers will do instead of outright firing someone to avoid a wrongful termination lawsuit), then I think this situation can be resolved reasonably. However, I have this sick feeling that the code is going to be shelved, and nothing will ever come of it... and if this is the case, a great application will be lost for no good reason. I have no tolerance for code or technologies being "sat upon" because some large corporation wants to keep them out of the market.
In this particular instance, this almost seems like a case of a company flexing their muscles because they can, not because they really hope to gain something out of it. Indeed, this was Cricket's belief when he e-mailed me back in October -- they had no real interest in the software, nor any plans (even general ones) related to the software.
If the developer has done his job at Apple, then clearly any shareware that he developed did not interfere with his job. This is enough to satisfy a jury or judge that the development of the shareware was not something that competed with his job, or in fact had anything to do with his job.
If the developer's job is clearly unrelated to the shareware developed, there can be no claim on intellectual property leakage.
If the developer can show that his job does not provide him with the privelege of seeing any future marketing plans that may allow him to understand that his shareware is potentially related to future plans of his employer, then the developer is clearly not attempting to compete with his/her employer.
Assuming that all of the above are true, any attempt to wrestle the shareware from the hands of the developer by the employer is, itself, extortion. The employee is the victim.
If the above are all true, Apple would loose in court (and badly). The developer could make millions by suing, and would deserve to.
However, it is probably not that clear. Knowing Apple, I must assume that one or more of the above assertions are not true, giving Apple a true claim to this code. Apple does not generally act like this.
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Why would anyone pay a fee to take a cab? Is it so hard to just walk?
Why would anyone pay a fee to watch cable TV? Is it so hard to just pull down the broadcasts with your own satellite dish?
While I could probably come up with a million more examples, the answer is always the same: because it is convenient. While I've never used this Netflix program, I imagine its appeal lies in its convenience.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
I don't know whether the author is legally within his rights or not. Some claim he is, some claim he should have checked out his rights first.
I also don't know whether Apple is within it's rights or not, but I do know that Apple could have had the decency (or simple common sense in avoiding a PR scandal) to pay him for the software.
And that is what it boils down to really. Decency. I know all the yada yada yada Apple is in the business of making money yada yada and we're hard arsed bastards in this world yada yada, but decency goes a long way to ensuring good PR and employee loyalty and above all customer loyalty.
Whether Steve Jobs knew of this or not, I can only say the following to him: Be careful, Mr Jobs. Losing the loyalty of your employees can lose you the loyalty of your customers, and that it the one thing that Apple has always had above the rest. Don't fuck it up, because in the end, I don't care. I'll drop this Mac and run Linux or Windows if I see no difference between the business practices.
I won't name my employer for confidentiality reasons, but it's a large IT company. I won't quote it's policy directly either, again for confidentiality, but can tell you that my company only owns my creations when they were created as a direct result of my duties.
If I choose to spend my own time at home to create something, and in doing so was not performing work directly for my company, then it's mine.
With my line manager's sign-off, I can even work for other companies. Of course, that would only be granted where there was no possibility of a conflict of interest, but the policy is there.
Employee morale? Not looking like assholes in public? An action like this can easily undo...
Not likely. That's why those millions were spent, to shore up against these 'small time' events... A month from now, this will be dust on the dormer and Apple will still be reaping positive karma off iPod Christmas commercials.
The desire to side with Goliath is a sign of groupthink. That's all too common today (and maybe not unexpected given the nation's somewhat nervous economic and military position), but it's also ironic, to say the least, in the case of fans of a corporation that trades on idealized images of individuality and self-expression. When Apple puts the squeeze on an employee, hiding behind a legal tradition designed to yoke human ingenuity to the whims of capital, then it's no more individualistic than the Borg in Redmond. Think Different - but all your different thoughts are belong to us.
However, I don't agree with you on never owning a Mac. That's your choice; but ownership isn't a summons to slavish endorsement of company practices. The machine is nice - even if the corporate master isn't.
*Read* your contract!
:-)
/., but please, if you never read your contract, especially if you work in the tech industry, you need to retract any and all posts on this subject until you do.
;-)
There is no harm in it, and it might just do some good
Seriously, it's documented many times and in many places, if you are going to work on something on your own time, tell your employer and make them sign something official saying "All your ideas (except this one below) are ours". simple, effective, and surprise! it is the way it (legally) needs to be done. I like
BTW: All corporations are evil. business is evil. some just happen to be less evil
_________________________________________________
This message is encoded using the Rot-26 encoding method. Unauthorized decoding of this message may result in extreme penalties under the DMCA. These penalties include, but are not limited to: US$100,000 fine, life imprisonment, castration, death, limp hair, terminal halitosis, and amputation of the extremities.
This is in stark contrast to when I interviewed over at EDS. The HR person had just been talking about more money than I had asked for. Then she said I needed to read the "IP" agreement and some other document in particular. It basically said they had the right to use my voice, image, or other "likeness" for any business purposes as they see fit. Not just ideas and inventions, but my very likeness! The technical guy came to interview me and I asked if the IP thing could be altered. He said no, so I said we have nothing further to discuss and left. This was just as the 3 other tech guys were arriving to talk to me - they didn't even realize what happened. I paused in the lobby because I could see via the atrium that one of them was madly racing down the stairs to catch me. I breifly explained the situation and continued on my way. This was during a phase of unemployment after a layoff yet. Never sign something you find unacceptable or this absurd.
It's interesting how many people I see 'soft pedaling' this because it's Apple Computer doing it.
I'm an Apple fan, but I don't approve of the behavior that's been described by the story. In fact, I wouldn't want to work at a company to exhibited such behavior. Of course, we don't know at all if the story reflects reality. I mean it's on rumor site, dude.
This is dangerous stuff, folks.
What's dangerous is making a decision based on a single source of information. The employee is going to be upset, no shit. So that leaves us with the rumor site.
Do you know that Apple wasn't working on related product? Do you know company resources weren't used? I can't understand how you can come to a definitive decision with so little information.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
Apple 'brutally crushed' Apple clones going way back into the Apple II days. There were a number of Apple II clones, all run out of business by the Apple legal team.
I don't quite get why it's a sin to prevent copies of a product from being made. Perhaps you don't like it, you don't have implicit rights to someone else's creation.
The low maintenance aspect of the Mac owes a lot to the fact that it's a unified software/hardware product without dozens of variations. I'd think you'd have to agree it's good for the market to at least have the option to buy this type of computer. Plenty of people would prefer have something that configures itself rather than multiple vendors. A lot of people dont't care about the politics.
- Scott
Scott Stevenson
Tree House Ideas
No, small print is the bane of modern life.
Think about it. Do you want to spend hours every day reading the fine print on every object you ever buy, every program you ever run, every road you ever drive upon, on the back of the business card of everyone to whom you ever talk, and then be sure to stop by the local library to read all of the tens of thousands of laws that control your every-day life? Do you?
Filibuster...
...
"Objection: irrelevant."
Filibuster...
"Objection: no foundation"
Filibuster...
"That's enough Mr. Attorney"
Filibuster...
"Mr. Attorney?"
Filibuster...
"MISTER ATTORNEY!! [gavel] [gavel]"
That would take about 45 seconds.
[sarcasm]Looks like Apple is just another greedy corporation and not the puppy-eyed consumers' best friend[/sarcasm]
Unfortunately, not all district court judges are that astute.
Will I retire or break 10K?
If they claimed rights to the source code, presumably they have a copy, likely from his workstation -- meaning one would expect he was using their resources to develop it, in which case it is their code. Now if they burst into his home and hijacked the code there, then I think he has a case :-) ...otherwise he's lucky he isn't unemployed yet.
Laws Supercede contracts, always. In particular, this law defines part of the relationship between a worker and a company. No contract can change that part of the relationship.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
If it looks like an Apple product and it Talks like an Apple product, I should have know. This guys product was awesome, and it was totally carbon. Should have known it was pure apple all the way. Not to say he shouldn't be compensated, but it was obvious all the way that this guy was an Apple guy...
People who write the small print are the bane of life.
I can't belive your willing to be such an asshole in a public forum,
congrats.