Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

An apology to open source

chartjs.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 259 posts

Re: An apology to open source

#41

Post by nevinera »

yen223 wrote: post #23

Does the company have any jurisdiction over what appears to be Nick's own project? This really sounds ridiculous.

If he's working in the US, then debatably yes. Though 'jurisdiction' isn't the right word.

Work performed by an employee during the course of operations is considered 'work for hire', and is the intellectual property of the employer. If he then goes on to replicate a large quantity of that work 'on his own time', he is most likely infringing on that work that he previously did (unless he's very careful about it. Since he didn't seem aware that it was a potential issue, he probably was not).

Now, it's not obvious that the employer would have won such a suit, but it's not a frivolous and un-winnable case either. It's generally best to talk to your employer about this sort of thing before releasing it - if they had been real jerks, they could have sued him for infringement despite his taking it back down when they asked.

Re: An apology to open source

#42

Post by iambibhas »

ayanb wrote: post #29

An open note to Nick's Employers - 1) If you are a technology company, this is Harakiri ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ). You are alienating every developer who is worth her salt. If you have a recruiting arm, and they are trying to recruit, god be with them. Ofcourse, you think people will never come to know, but this has the potential to be a good story and press will pick it up. I will not be surprised if…

They have already lost Nick. It's just matter of time now.

Re: An apology to open source

#43

Post by MrScruff »

ayanb wrote: post #29

An open note to Nick's Employers - 1) If you are a technology company, this is Harakiri ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ). You are alienating every developer who is worth her salt. If you have a recruiting arm, and they are trying to recruit, god be with them. Ofcourse, you think people will never come to know, but this has the potential to be a good story and press will pick it up. I will not be surprised if…

From the OP

'Sadly though, due to concerns from my employer regarding intellectual property and similarities in projects I've worked on, I've been asked to take down the site.'

We have no way of assessing the validity of these concerns from what has been said. If the company feels the open source project contains work they have funded, and don't want to release, then it is their right to ask him to withdraw it.

Also, unless Nick is primarily driven by open source participation there's nothing to say they will eventually lose him.

Re: An apology to open source

#44

Post by arethuza »

nevinera wrote: post #34
noonespecial wrote: post #17

Don't just take it down. Destroy it. Make sure that any benefit your employer was receiving from it vanishes. If they claim ownership, despite the work having been done in your free time, demand the overtime pay. Make it clear that OSHA will be involved if they decline. Hardline dickery deservers to be repaid in kind. Ah: Edit still available: Destroy was the wrong word. Make inaccessible to everyone, including the e…

That's not 'hardline dickery'. The company didn't get a lawyer involved and force him to take it down, they expressed concern - the author apparently agrees that it's related or similar to work he did while an employee, or there would have been a bit more argument than "oh, ok". What you're proposing would of course be fine - the company isn't claiming 'ownership' of that code, just suggesting that it might be infrin…

"What you're proposing would of course be fine"

Not if the company are claiming ownership (even in the vaguest of ways) of the code and think there is some value in it - in that case "destroying" it could be a remarkably bad thing to do.

[NB I have been involved in litigation over ownership of code and although we were 100% in the right it was an appallingly stressful experence - mostly because logic seemed to go completely out the window once things turned nasty].

Re: An apology to open source

#45

Post by jimmychu0807 »

nevinera wrote: post #19
phpnode wrote: post #12

That's a shame. This serves as a reminder to us all to be very careful when signing employment contracts. We're fortunate enough to be in an industry with huge demand for talent at the moment, so in addition to salary / benefits, things like having the right to open source your work should be included in your negotiations. In my experience, most good companies are OK with it.

>This serves as a reminder to us all to be very careful when signing employment contracts. If he was a full-time employee in the US, a contract wouldn't be necessary for this to be an issue. All work done by an employee on company time or using company resources is 'work for hire' (a term often misused in the software contracting industry, where it rarely applies), and that IP belongs to the company. >In my experienc…

My thought is aligning with the policy what nevinera mentioned. The company should have the right to say whether to open src certain project or not programmed by the staff during the work time.

But the code written by the same staff during the off-hour should belonged to the same staff.

I am running a startup in Hong Kong, and I am thinking of adopting this kind of policy.

Re: An apology to open source

#46

Post by manmal »

MrScruff wrote: post #43
ayanb wrote: post #29

An open note to Nick's Employers - 1) If you are a technology company, this is Harakiri ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ). You are alienating every developer who is worth her salt. If you have a recruiting arm, and they are trying to recruit, god be with them. Ofcourse, you think people will never come to know, but this has the potential to be a good story and press will pick it up. I will not be surprised if…

From the OP 'Sadly though, due to concerns from my employer regarding intellectual property and similarities in projects I've worked on, I've been asked to take down the site.' We have no way of assessing the validity of these concerns from what has been said. If the company feels the open source project contains work they have funded, and don't want to release, then it is their right to ask him to withdraw it. Also,…

Nobody argued that it is not their right. Of course it is, or Nick would have left it up at Github. It's their right, but it's not "right".

Re: An apology to open source

#48

Post by nness »

yen223 wrote: post #23

Does the company have any jurisdiction over what appears to be Nick's own project? This really sounds ridiculous.

Pretty much the run of the mill employment contract will claim ownership of an employees creations, most regardless of whether that creation has anything to do with their every day activities. Some go so far as to claim all creations related to their discipline, even if conducted outside work hours.

The problem is simply that its too hard to challenge if such an issue ever arose. Any decent business wouldn't just claim everything under the sun. It is a worrying grey area though.

Re: An apology to open source

#49

Post by mseebach »

There are a lot of knee-jerk reactions here that may very well be completely justified - but the facts are that we don't know where Nick works and in what capacity. We can't know if there is legitimate concern over IP or competitive advantage here? It's unlikely, but for the sake of a thought experiment: What if Nick's employers sell a JS component that does the same+10% as chart.js?

EDIT: Apparently he made it before starting his job. Yes, that makes it quite a bit more fishy.

Post reply on HN