From: tfoley@camaro.uucp (Tim Foley) Subject: Re: LINUX, Unix, and opportunity for change Date: 28 Dec 1992 13:29:11 GMT
In article <1992Dec27.232450.26745@netcom.com> messina@netcom.com (Tony Porczyk) writes:
>goer@ellis.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) writes:
>
>>mleech@bnr.ca (Marcus Leech) writes:
>>>
>>>Were it not for the fact that I have a job where everything I create is
>>> owned by my employer, I'd be as busy as Linus; contributing, rather
>>> than just pontificating. [Though it's certainly not unheard-of around
>>> here to be able to release freeware, just rather rare].
>
>>Did you actually sign a contract that gives them rights to code you cut
>>at home during off hours? If so, I'm quite amazed. Perhaps I'm just
>>naive, but this sounds like a form of slavery. I hope they pay you a
>>king's ransom.
>
>That is actually a common practice in many companies. Of course, you may
>argue that court might not uphold such broad definition. Nevertheless,
>I have seen it in contracts (and have singed at least one).
Your right, I have had to sign two contracts like this, one was with IBM
Canada, any code that was written during employment, and even two years
afterwords (Good luck making that stick IBM) was considered IBM property,
and this did not have a single defination of code, just quite broad. So I
agree that a court would probably throw it out, unless you tried to release
a program which was exactly what you were working at at your employer.
Another small company I worked for pulled the same thing, but at least
they didn't have the two years afterword thing...
My present employer, only holds rights to code specific to my job
applications, and I didn't have to sign anything this time. Needless
to say, I'm much happier :)
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