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AWS gives open source the middle finger?

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Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#111

Post by saagarjha »

clairity wrote: post #20
spectre256 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I "accidentally" worked at amazon for a few weeks when a company I had just joined was acquired by them. I knew it was time to start looking when I was informed that I had to get prior permission to do ANY open source contributions even on my own hardware on my own time. That's just not feasible logistically and above and beyond the general "don't write open source that competes with us or on our our time/hardware wi…

that kind of restriction is generally not enforceable in states like california unless you explicitly get some kind of consideration (e.g., compensation) for it.

> unless you explicitly get some kind of consideration (e.g., compensation) for it

Is this in addition to the regular salary you are paid, or…

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#112

Post by saagarjha »

ipsum2 wrote: post #95
notyourwork wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please name one, they all have the same non-compete language in their job offers and they are at-will positions. It may be allowed by your manager but company policy isn't such.

Off the top of my head, there's company policies for employees to work on their own projects at Google, Facebook, and Github.

How often are they granted, and under what circumstances?

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#113

Post by rectang »

saagarjha wrote: post #105
TheDong wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every company that is based on california, or that employs you in california, is better. No matter what the non-compete says, if you're in CA, you can use your own hardware and non-work time to develop anything that doesn't directly compete with your employer/dayjob and doesn't use trade secrets/IP from the company. Amazon though is mostly based in Washington, where no such law exists, so sweeping non-competes are le…

> No matter what the non-compete says, if you're in CA, you can use your own hardware and non-work time to develop anything that doesn't directly compete with your employer/dayjob and doesn't use trade secrets/IP from the company. What if you work for a company that happens to have a stake in basically every field of technology?

This is one of two reasons why I work for a small company, and also why I left another small company when it was acquired by a large company -- CA 2870 only offers meaningful protection when your employer isn't active in the relevant field of endeavor.

I don't want to compete with my employer, I just want to write some sound software on my own time and to maintain my ability to contribute in open source administration. It offends me that the state of the industry is such that I'm expected to sign away my soul on taking any software development job.

(The other main reason I won't work for a big is that I don't want to work 40 hours each week but the bigs won't budge on that.)

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#114

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

notyourwork wrote: post #52
Pfhreak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. My research suggested that Amazon's policies about open source and game development were stricter. (For example, I must be willing to disclose any sales data to Amazon. I must use Amazon products when possible. I must make my project available on the Amazon store if possible.) Most companies also have a process to keep copyright if you need/want to. Yes, most companies have approval processes. They might…

Most companies being who exactly? All the people disagreeing with me clearly have not read their terms of employment.

Maybe qualify “most companies” to “most large Silicon Valley tech companies”? I’ve never worked anywhere with any non-compete clause at all.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#116

Post by dijit »

arbie wrote: post #63
exabrial wrote: post #53

It's mongodb though... It's well documented at this point you shouldn't be using mongo on anything that matters

What should one be using in its stead?

This is a fair question, I would advise not listening to anybody who says they have a "one size solution" for all data.

For searchable structured data, I'd probably go with elasticsearch. It scales very well and you can turn off indexing and use it as a document store.

I am a huge fan of postgresql and the more I use it the more awesome I find it, so I'd probably use postgresql's JSONB column type for unstructured data if that's a requirement. You can pair it with citus and make it scale quite well.

For pure document storing there's RethinkDB which performs well and does not lose your data as MongoDB does.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#117

Post by rectang »

Galanwe wrote: post #34
Pfhreak wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. My research suggested that Amazon's policies about open source and game development were stricter. (For example, I must be willing to disclose any sales data to Amazon. I must use Amazon products when possible. I must make my project available on the Amazon store if possible.) Most companies also have a process to keep copyright if you need/want to. Yes, most companies have approval processes. They might…

>I disagree. My research suggested that Amazon's policies about open source and game development were stricter. Worked at microsoft for 2 years, there are the same policies. It was not contractual though. It's just that there were notes broadcasted saying that whenever you discussed with third parties, you should use microsoft tools if possible. Want to meet someone? Send a Bing Maps link, not Google Maps. Want to sh…

Microsoft is big and the contacts I have there tell me that the open source policies vary by department.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#118

Post by dmlittle »

notyourwork wrote: post #5

> “However, developers are technically savvy enough to distinguish between the real thing and a poor imitation. MongoDB will continue to outperform any impersonations in the market.” That's a bold statement to make against AWS services.

For what it's worth when it comes to choosing a hosted ElasticSearch provider I would go to Elastic over AWS Elasticsearch Service.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#119

Post by VvR-Ox »

I don't even wonder.

It's not just Open Source who will get nasty signs from amazon. They already have too much power for one company and the more power they'll have the less they have to abide by rules normal companies/humans have to abide by.

Re: AWS gives open source the middle finger?

#120

Post by chii »

MereInterest wrote: post #96
skybrian wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People outside a company will not believe that employees of the company keep secrets from each other, at least when it suits them to believe otherwise. So like it or not, if it looks like there're a conflict of interest (even if there isn't), people will blame it on the company. So I don't really think it's so bad that they want to know what you're working on, provided that approval is usually granted.

Asking for approval, even if that approval is typically granted, still implies that they have the authority to refuse permission. The farthest that the employer's moral authority extends is to ask politely to be informed. Not to require to be informed, and certainly not to require approval.

May be the permission should be flipped - the company has to ask the employee for approval to stop the opensource project.

It would work by having the employee list their projects, and the company will, when they find a conflict or some shared interest, ask for the employee to volunteer to stop their project. The employee can refuse, but typically won't.

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