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Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

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Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#52

Best practices for side projects (US): - Never give work full rights to everything you make on your own time. - Never use company hardware, software, time or offices to develop a side project you might want to monetize commercially later. - Charge work a "1 node license fee" of $1 with an invoice and a standard commercial software EULA if you intend to try your creation at work. Also specify that it includes maintena…

I think you will run into conflict of interest issues with having your employer pay you to use your product. It might fly at some places, but I would be hesitant of running afoul of all manner of issues if there could be a perception that you are leveraging your employment position to profit your own company. Especially if your employer accepts money from the government.

I agree with the first two though. I personally am leery of suggesting the use of my own products and services to a current employer, and would only do it if it's very clear that there's both not other great options and that there's not a conflict of interest (decision maker is in another department for instance) and recognize that I may need to quit my job to avoid the perception of a conflict of interest or legal issues with government grants or other awards that may prohibit employees from also being vendors.

It's definitely riskier than just not using your personal projects at work unless your employer is actively pursuing using it fully independently (ex: your project is the only good solution to a problem and it's unreasonable for your employer to be the only people who can't use it). But even then, I'm largely unable to do work that only I can possibly do (i.e. I worked on two projects as an independent contractor for my current employer before they were my part-time employer) for people in another department despite being part time simply because it's too much of a mess to get it approved. I could probably get it done, but it's a huge hassle and not worth it for $1.

But your current employer might also take major issue with you having a side business selling to their competitors stuff that they want to use, regardless of the technical legality... at the least you might get fired even if you've done nothing legally wrong it might be against their employment guidelines to do this if you're a full time employee. I specifically chose to be part time because I still do contract work on the side (and make more money doing that than I do at the part time job, but I really enjoy my part time job so I don't mind).

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#53

Apparently some company called "Lynwood Investments CY Ltd" has bought the rights for copyright enforcement from Rambler Group - I guess this is classed as "copyright trolling"? Looking at the search warrant[1] the claim is that Nginx was developed while the author still worked at Rambler and during work time. [1] https://twitter.com/AntNesterov/status/1205086129504104460

do you think Russia is such a law and order country ? Let's wait and see...this isn't it.

I try to stick to the facts and keep my biases out of the conversation and I wish the same to you.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#55

Slightly easier to read: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1205086129504104460.html TLDR: Igor Sysoev started Nginx while employed by Rambler, who did not then claim copyright, but now they have. The police raid is a result of that claim.

Russia has absurd IP hijacking rules that are being exploited.

On the West there wouldn't be even a chance for this business: nginx would belong to employer by default.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#56
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The KGB was broken up in 1991.

It's the same people under a different acronym, this is not a meaningful difference for most people.

Especially for the Front Side Bus crowd

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has absurd IP hijacking rules that are being exploited.

On the West there wouldn't be even a chance for this business: nginx would belong to employer by default.

By default but if you have enough leverage you can get all sorts of allowances from an employer. I always have any clause struck about the employer owning anything I produce outside of work for example. (I don't necessarily consider this to be an example of significant leverage just common-sense.)

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#58
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a bad idea for any company in any country, the way laws surrounding tech are going.

Not sure if your comment is trolling or just due to ignorance, but https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergei_Magnitsky

Not trolling... if they outlaw encryption, as most governments want to do, it will require creative org structures.

Re: Police conducted search in the Nginx office due to a copyright claim

#59

F5 buys Nginx, then months later there are suddenly copyright claims and raids relating to the founder having left a former company in 2012...

Not sure about you but I always wait 7 years before enforcing dubious copyright rights.
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