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IBM acquires Red Hat

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Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#811

Post by mcv »

MyNameIsFred wrote: post #740
giis wrote: post #718

I went to IBM(India) interview sometime in 2011, after leaving GlusterFS (Red Hat). Interview went well, during final call with management. I was asked to stop working on Open Source during weekends or off-hours even though the IBM project and my Open Source work has nothing in common. I said, "I thought, IBM support Open Source right?" his response, "Yes, but that's another team" I decided to call-off the interview…

What wouldn't be the 5th time I've heard such stories, but I don't think it's in any way specific to IBM. Employers like that want any OT you do to be dedicated to THEIR endeavor, not somebody else's...even your own. If you're able and willing to code in your off-time, you should be doing it for the good of the Company. /s

It's a terrible and completely unreasonable stance for an employer. You get the hours you pay for. You don't get to own people's free time.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#812

Post by usrusr »

icedchai wrote: post #555
usrusr wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure that you can draw a line where it does not count as "core product", but Eclipse has to count as something.

Eclipse is horribly bloated. Many, many developers have moved to IntelliJ IDEA.

So have I, but I haven't forgotten how much of a godsend it used to be. I do occasionally wonder if eclipse was actually better then or if it has just stagnated while the rest of the world marched on.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#813

Post by mcv »

_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #686
jhallenworld wrote: post #614

When I worked for IBM (via acquisition), I wanted to fix bugs in Cygwin (owned by Red Hat). Red Hat does not accept patches unless you get permission from your current employer. I could not get anybody in IBM to sign Red Hat's permission slip. Nobody would sign because it's all risk, no reward from IBM's point of view.

I have the same problem in academia, being in a non-CS department, I'm required to notify the University's Center for Technology & Venture Commercialization about assigning my copyright over software to another entity (like the FSF), but so far I have been unsuccessful at getting them to sign the letter the FSF wants, despite the code I would be contributing being completely outside of my work at the University and s…

I totally understand that large organisations don't want to sign papers about things that are none of their business. It's ridiculous that they need to sign them. This shouldn't be a requirement for Open Source contributions. But with some businesses claiming their employees' unrelated work done in their free time, I can see how this has become a necessity.

It's harmful for open source, and a terrible situation that's not to anyone's benefit. I guess US law should make more clear that employers don't own their employees' private work?

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#814

Post by andy_ppp »

giis wrote: post #718

I went to IBM(India) interview sometime in 2011, after leaving GlusterFS (Red Hat). Interview went well, during final call with management. I was asked to stop working on Open Source during weekends or off-hours even though the IBM project and my Open Source work has nothing in common. I said, "I thought, IBM support Open Source right?" his response, "Yes, but that's another team" I decided to call-off the interview…

I can see Joel's points here and this is relevant to the discussion.

It's probably the article he has written I disagree with the most as there is a simple way to deal with this; be very clear about the projects, code and designs the employee works on each month and sign them over as they are delivered. That way the employee's own work will be clear should there be any legal wrangling. This could be done by a status in Jira for example.

https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#815

Post by consp »

anilakar wrote: post #774
_emacsomancer_ wrote: post #747

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My contract requires that anything I develop using University resources, which in practice means potentially anything in my areas of specialisation, the University has some claim on. It's not entirely unreasonable - imagine someone in Biochemistry developing some drug using University labs etc. and then turning around and selling the formula to a private lab. But it's the petty bureaucratisation which is infuriating.…

While I was working as an assistant researcher three years ago, my contract also considered all research-derived knowledge uni property. In this case, pretty much anything tangentially related to HTTP performance enhancements would have been claimable by them.

It the software is GPL, and you use it for your company/university to do work with, that is a very dubious claim and more likely falsifiable in court.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#816

Post by sjellis »

sz4kerto wrote: post #52

Guys, this is not just, or mainly not RH Linux. :( - kernel development - Ansible - JBoss (I know HN hates Java, especially Java EE, but it was and is an important factor in enterprise OSS adoption) - OpenShift - Ceph, Gluster All these are in danger, not just RHEL. I don't know about any other company that is large, successful, focuses on the enterprise and absolutely behind OSS. Canonical is way behind Red Hat in t…

Red Hat's Open Source only approach does mean that none of these projects can be closed down, though: AFAIK, IBM are acquiring people and a brand, but no significant proprietary IP. If higher-ups at IBM turn out to be as clueless as Oracle, then key engineers will just walk and continue working on those projects elsewhere.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#817

Post by consp »

rusticpenn wrote: post #762
ksec wrote: post #714

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is US specific.

Nope, Its the same in Germany too.

Only if it is directly related to your research under office hours and is done solely by your university. If you use the university laptop to do some OS at home it is not, though in the US it could be and usually is.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#818

Post by mcv »

LordDragonfang wrote: post #687
p1necone wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This actually seems like fair policy to me, think of the mess Red Hat would be in if IBM decided that they had copyright on your contributions to Cygwin. Or is my understanding of copyright law off base?

That's exactly why Red Hat had said permission slips. The ridiculous thing was that IBM refused to sign them

The ridiculous thing is that IP law makes this necessary.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#819

Post by paulcarroty »

bpye wrote: post #226
devoply wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, 10 years down the line RHEL is pretty much guaranteed dead. Probably say goodbye to Fedora as well.

This is sad, Fedora has been my favourite distribution for a little while. Red Hat have been a good community player and it is a big loss for them to be gobbled up by IBM. What is the best alternative to Fedora and CentOS?

Too early to say what will happens with Fedora and other RH products.

Re: IBM acquires Red Hat

#820

Post by de_watcher »

MyNameIsFred wrote: post #740
giis wrote: post #718

I went to IBM(India) interview sometime in 2011, after leaving GlusterFS (Red Hat). Interview went well, during final call with management. I was asked to stop working on Open Source during weekends or off-hours even though the IBM project and my Open Source work has nothing in common. I said, "I thought, IBM support Open Source right?" his response, "Yes, but that's another team" I decided to call-off the interview…

What wouldn't be the 5th time I've heard such stories, but I don't think it's in any way specific to IBM. Employers like that want any OT you do to be dedicated to THEIR endeavor, not somebody else's...even your own. If you're able and willing to code in your off-time, you should be doing it for the good of the Company. /s

> If you're able and willing to code in your off-time, you should be doing it for the good of the Company.

Excuse me, what the f...?

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