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Getting Paid To Abandon an Open Source Project?
darkeye writes "I'm facing a difficult dilemma and looking for opinions. I've been contributing heavily to an open source project, making considerable changes to code organization and quality, but the work is unfinished at the moment. Now, a company is approaching me to continue my changes. They want to keep the improvements to themselves, which is possible since the project is published under the BSD license. That's fair, as they have all the rights to the work they pay for in full. However, they also want me to sign a non-competition clause, which would bar me from ever working on and publishing results for the original open source project itself, even if done separately, in my free time. How would you approach such a decision? On one side, they'd provide resources to work on an interesting project. On the other, it would make me an outcast in the project's community. Moreover, they would take ownership of not just what they paid for, but also my changes leading up to this moment, and I wouldn't be able to continue on my original codebase in an open source manner if I sign their contract."
Non-competes are not valid in some US states. (California in particular.) Get a lawyer and see if the non-compete clause is anything but hot air.
Also, don't be afraid to negotiate. If the non-compete is an issue for them, tell them. Maybe you can get it removed.
The cake is a pie
Don't sign anything without solid, real legal advice.
Secondly; what is the value of the project you are working on to the company? If it has any real commercial value, and your coding is critical, you should be talking a cut of the company or to someone else wiling to fund your work.
If they'd laid out a business plan to you and you are not under an NDA you could shop it around and find out what it is worth. Until you sign you owe them nothing.
Finally, don't sign a non-compete. If they want you bad enough they will back down on any terms you don't like, possibly to include code ownership and or wanting a cut of their company.
If they don't back down, chances are they want you cheap or something you did up to them is what they really want and simply are trying to lock you up.
At any rate - deciding to make money off your skills is not selling out.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Are you in California? If so, non-compete clauses are illegal and routinely slapped down in court.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
In short they wish to enslave him by denying him the use of some of his abilities forever (or in practical terms until he dies) in exchange for what amounts to a set of glass beads
Someone wants to pay him because they see commercial value in his work, right? They presumably want to sell his work, and won't sell very much if he can just backport his work into the free version. Thus, they want him to promise not to work on the free version of the project anymore.
I count as about as anti-corporate as they come, but I don't see how you can consider their request unreasonable, to the extent they can actually enforce it via the FP poster's actions... Yes, he should probably negotiate for a minimum term of employment, or royalties, or a lump sum up front; But if he chooses to accept their offer as it stands, what does he really have to lose?
Worst case scenario, they fire him the first day. He can no longer work on the free version of the project, but it can continue without him and, most importantly, the company doesn't actually get anything! He doesn't have the right or power to withdraw his existing codebase from the project, only to fork it and release future work under a different license (note that I don't consider that rules-lawyering, in that he doesn't need to do anything in breach of his contract for it to happen, the company apparently just doesn't understand how the BSD license works).
The only thing even remotely approaching "adequate" compensation for such a thing are perpetual payments from these "employers" or an up-front amount guaranteeing him life-long comfort
Again, spare me the drama. "Life-long comfort" for no longer donating his time to an open source project? Although we don't have all the details, what exactly do you do you think the guy has written, firmware to turn a $17 toaster into a dialysis machine?
You on the other hand are just a typical greed monkey whose "brain" locks up as soon as some dollar bills are in view.
"Practical" != "Greedy"... Like it or not, we live in a world that requires us to pay for our food, our shelter, our transportation, and just about any leisure activities we might enjoy. Nothing "noble" about starving in the streets because of that. At the same time, what you and so many others seem to forget, we can do a hell of a lot more good with cash-in-hand, than by donating our time to some obscure open source project - Strangely enough, food-banks and shelters don't take code.
And y'know, "Profit" has more than four letters in it. What we choose to do with money makes it (and us) dirty; By itself, it just represents a tokenized form of our efforts that we can use for good or bad, for necessities or luxuries, for helping others or for hoarding.