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An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

andychase.me

51–60 of 271 posts

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#51
probably someone paid a lawyer to draw up, or copy-pasted that contract and then people who don't really care about their job to a serious level, or maybe just don't think very much, are saying it can't be changed - probably without even asking anyone who has authority to make that kind of decision.

if you can get in touch with a director about this, and they are smart, they will probably want to fix this for everyone after about a moment's consideration.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#52
"We never had a problem with this clause before, why would you want to change it?"

Oh do I hate this line. But it's a two-way street. I'm very fortunate that for one of my first freelance gigs, I read the contract and specifically pointed out that I would be using personal/open sourced code snippets, and that I might want to reuse/open source some of the code I produced for them (only snippets with general interest).

They agreed without a flinch, and thanks to that experience, I'm going to hold every other employer to the same standard "I never had a problem with this request with any other employer, why would you want to refuse?"

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#53
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be possible to link that discussion?

Interesting. This is from 2010, but random googling took me here: https://github.com/snapframework/snap-server/commit/5e4850d4... The situation is quite simple: - pre-existing work I contributed to this project remains under my copyright - contributions other people make to this project remain under their own copyrights - contributions I make to this project subsequent to November 2010 are under Google copyright - no…

This is correct with respect to Google's process.

When it comes to Amazon, you have employees sending patches upstream anonymously because the company culture is against contributing anything back to the open source community.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#55
post #24

I'm not trying to defend gigster (broad indemnification clauses are bad news), but if someone framed those questions to me that way, I would also be hesitant to respond to them. It raises the "I'm going to be a handful" alarm. So, I understand why they were hesitant to respond and didn't want to comment on it.

I don't agree in the slightest. If anything, developers who ask questions are the ones you want most . One of the worst traits in a developer is the tendency to say yes to everything.

>If anything, developers who ask questions are the ones you want most. One of the worst traits in a developer is the tendency to say yes to everything.

I didn't say that. I said that I disagree with the way he framed his questions.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree in the slightest. If anything, developers who ask questions are the ones you want most . One of the worst traits in a developer is the tendency to say yes to everything.

Yeah, but there are thousands of devs who say yes to gigster. That's enough to make money.

How do you know? Gigster has raised $10MM+. For a business that actually drives revenue (as opposed to Random Social iOS App), they have quite a long runway even if they lose a few thousand dollars per project.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#57

I recently learned from a github discussion that if you work for Amazon, Google etc. you are also not allowed to work on any open source projects, even on your free time without their permission.

Ex Amazon employee here: Amazon requires employees to obtain written permission even to contribute in your free time and this makes many developers unhappy.

However the company does not claim copyright or patents on work-unrelated ideas and (closed-source) projects.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#58

I do contract work a lot in the UK through recruitment agencies. I very often provide feedback like this, especially when i'm asked to opt-out of the agency regulations. I never opt out, every single time i get the a response along the lines of "In my 20+ years of recruiting we've never had any problems with the contractor not opting out of the agency regulations, you're the first person to ever do that. Can i ask wh…

My question is: Does this ever actually result in them amending the contract? If not, do you then refuse to sign (as I suppose OP did in the gigster case)? If so, what happens if you discover that everyone's contracts are similarly problematic?

Well given that the law specifically prohibits them from rescinding an offer if i dont want to opt out i gently remind them that if they try to pull any shit. Sometimes they'll just make the amend in the contract and that'll be the end of it, sometimes they want a reference for every single place i've worked at in the last 3 years (as a contractor thats probably about 20+ places), to which i tell them they'll get the standard 2 references and thats it, they also want verifications of every qualification i have, since i dont have a single qualification, only 12 years industry experience working for top names in the industry, that kinda solves itself.

Basically i dont stand for their shit, but i'm in a very privileged position of never once been desperate to accept a position, its always been very easy for me to find work. So if i need to walk away, i will. Its those who dont have this option and will agree to any terms put in front of them i feel sorry for.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#59

I do contract work a lot in the UK through recruitment agencies. I very often provide feedback like this, especially when i'm asked to opt-out of the agency regulations. I never opt out, every single time i get the a response along the lines of "In my 20+ years of recruiting we've never had any problems with the contractor not opting out of the agency regulations, you're the first person to ever do that. Can i ask wh…

My question is: Does this ever actually result in them amending the contract? If not, do you then refuse to sign (as I suppose OP did in the gigster case)? If so, what happens if you discover that everyone's contracts are similarly problematic?

I never worked through an agency. But when I was freelancing, yes. I refused to sign a bunch. For others I found the only way for people to listen was to have a lawyer involved.

Once my lawyer and their lawyer got to the point they talked directly, contract modifications and negotiation proceeded at a brisk pace.

But many companies were offended I didn't just blindly sign the contract. Even when they clearly contained clauses that were problematic.

I was also routinely handed contracts with clauses that would have forced me to violate other contracts if I signed both. For instance, one contract would require me to disclose anyone else I worked with over a 24 month period while another contract would prevent me from disclosing anything about an engagement. (I usually signed neither.)

Thankfully my main client's contract was eminently sensible, so I mostly worked with one amazing group of engineers for awhile.

Eventually some of the annoyances of freelancing made me come around to exploring a full time position. So I am in one of those now and enjoy it actually quite a bit.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#60
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree in the slightest. If anything, developers who ask questions are the ones you want most . One of the worst traits in a developer is the tendency to say yes to everything.

>If anything, developers who ask questions are the ones you want most. One of the worst traits in a developer is the tendency to say yes to everything. I didn't say that. I said that I disagree with the way he framed his questions.

Perhaps I'm missing something. Could you explain how the way he framed his questions was disagreeable to you? From my reading they were perfectly reasonable.
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