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An apology to open source

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Re: An apology to open source

#181

Post by aneth4 »

jetti wrote: post #171
aneth4 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overtime doesn't apply to white collar workers. I've not heard of OSHA being involved in employer IP issues, nor in any software engineering environment. Destroying something the company claims as their IP would subject someone to some serious criminal and civil liability. Also, if the guy didn't like his job, he'd probably find another one. I get the sense he wants to keep this one and maintain a civil employment.

>Overtime doesn't apply to white collar workers. Not true. Software developers are mostly exempt, but there are some that will be non-exempt from overtime based on their salary. If the person makes less than $455 a week as salaried or less than $27.63 an hour as an hourly employeed then they will be non-exempt (http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm). However, I have a feeling it would be h…

Sorry, forgot about all those software engineers in the US making less than $455/week or $27.63/hr. Right on.

Re: An apology to open source

#182

Post by baggachipz »

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…

I've worked at many companies who claim to "support" FOSS, without ever contributing. What that really means is that they support getting free software. Take + no give = parasite, end of story.

Re: An apology to open source

#183

Post by Millennium »

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…

Seppuku is a method of expressing extreme regret: apology, protest, and similar things. What I'd agree that Nick's employers are acting in an extremely foolish manner, it doesn't sound like they regret anything.

Re: An apology to open source

#184

Post by pbhjpbhj »

fakeer wrote: post #145
shin_lao wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have only one side of the story. Maybe the company doesn't have the rights on the code and cannot decide to open source it. Maybe they're making money with the code and open sourcing it is killing the business. Maybe they have a procedure before open sourcing code. If tomorrow I wake up with a developer open sourcing part of the work he does for us I would sure be very unhappy. You just can't condone that kind of…

Nick's words: It had been my final year university project I had been working on for a couple of months

Often that means that the university claims rights in the IP produced, certainly [way back] when I matriculated it was required of all students to sign a waiver giving rights to the Uni for any works created whilst being a student. The first I heard about it was at the matriculation table when I'd already gone up. Perhaps this sort of thing doesn't happen elsewhere or as been deemed inappropriate.

Re: An apology to open source

#185

Post by bradleyland »

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,…

It's also possible that they (he and his employer) performed the "related work" on commission and have signed over IP rights to a client. In this case, open sourcing the work would expose them to liability from the client.

Re: An apology to open source

#186

Post by napoleond »

nagrom wrote: post #173
alexkus wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The IP of my final year (UK) university project belongs to the University not me, and not to the company that was sponsoring me for my final year.

Are you sure? I employ PhD students to work on commercial products and there is a strict rule in the university that any work done by the student is owned by the student. We are granted an irrevocable, fully transferable licence to use their work, but the student is not locked out from doing whatever they like with the stuff that they did. I'd be surprised if that was not the same for undergraduates - although I am a…

In North America, that is an atypical arrangement. Here in Canada, Waterloo is unique for being one of the few (only?) schools that doesn't claim IP ownership. My university (Manitoba) does, although it is negotiable and for commercially sponsored projects the sponsoring company generally owns the IP.

EDIT: From personal experience, I can also tell you that IP policies are less clear at the undergraduate level around here.

Re: An apology to open source

#187

Post by Silhouette »

arethuza wrote: post #177
Silhouette wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is widespread practice in the UK for "a certain type of organisation" to include a blanket IP clause in their standard employment contracts. I don't know of any robust legal argument that such a clause should not be enforceable (which isn't to say that none exists, but I've been involved in some fairly heavy negotiations on this score in the past and no lawyer on either side has ever questioned that aspect to my k…

"a certain type of organisation" I'd love to know what you mean by that! :-)

What I actually meant was the kind of company, usually large, often foreign-owned, where HR is run by droids who think creative people are interchangeable commodities whose souls should rightfully belong to the company 24/7 in return for paying their salary.

If they're smart enough to let the managers who need to get real work done override the paranoia of the corporate legal and HR departments, they can still hire good people by allowing flexibility in the contract when these over-reaching terms are almost inevitably challenged.

Some places just won't deviate from their standard contract and if you want a job with them then you just have to suck it up. Strangely, I don't know many good creative people who work for those places.

Re: An apology to open source

#188

Post by [deleted] »

napoleond wrote: post #186
nagrom wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure? I employ PhD students to work on commercial products and there is a strict rule in the university that any work done by the student is owned by the student. We are granted an irrevocable, fully transferable licence to use their work, but the student is not locked out from doing whatever they like with the stuff that they did. I'd be surprised if that was not the same for undergraduates - although I am a…

In North America, that is an atypical arrangement. Here in Canada, Waterloo is unique for being one of the few (only?) schools that doesn't claim IP ownership. My university (Manitoba) does, although it is negotiable and for commercially sponsored projects the sponsoring company generally owns the IP. EDIT: From personal experience, I can also tell you that IP policies are less clear at the undergraduate level around…

[deleted]

Re: An apology to open source

#189

Post by lucisferre »

slashdotdash wrote: post #127

Some alternative JavaScript charting libraries... * Highcharts JS ( http://www.highcharts.com/ ) * Flot ( http://www.flotcharts.org/ ) * NVD3 ( http://nvd3.org/ ) * morris.js ( http://www.oesmith.co.uk/morris.js/ ) * Rickshaw ( http://code.shutterstock.com/rickshaw/ ) * jqPlot ( http://www.jqplot.com/ ) * gRaphaël ( http://g.raphaeljs.com/ ) * YUI charts ( http://yuilibrary.com/yui/docs/charts/ ) * Polychart.js ( htt…

I've used both Rickshaw and NVD3, was not happy with the quality or APIs of either project and ended up building directly on D3. Unfortunate since I don't feel like D3 has an ideal API for charting and a simpler abstraction would be desired.
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