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An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

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Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#121

Post by Mithaldu »

dqv wrote: post #102
theli0nheart wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he wrote was a statement of fact, not of opinion. Gigster can in fact do something really awful and there is no recourse. In any contract negotiation, sometimes you need to be clear what the problem is. If you, as a party to a contract, indeed feel like there is zero chance that other party will do anything to injure you, will keep to their promises, and has your best interests at heart, what is the point of the…

There is an appropriate way to be clear on what the problem is and an inappropriate way to be clear on what the problem is. My initial point is that he did not raise his objections in an appropriate way. I completely understand why he objected and I would have objected as well, but I would have done so in a more appropriate way.

Why is there any onus on him to conduct himself in any kind of appropiate manner if the contract sent to him was in turn wildly appropiate (and not even accompanied by a polite set of words)?

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#122

Post by AtheistOfFail »

pjc50 wrote: post #83
gurgus wrote: post #11

That classic "well, nobody else has had a problem, so you must be the problem" response. I remember at one of my first jobs, myself and another programmer were working on a side project (outside of work hours, not using company resources in any way) that were considering monetising. Our contracts stated that the company we worked for owned all of our code produced in and out of working hours. We got to the business e…

The ambiguous IP clause is very common in UK programmer employment contracts. I've had two experiences with it. Most recently, I was able to insert a clarifying clause that said "work not related to company's business and not done on company time/equipment doesn't count". Previously, I was working at a startup that didn't have this clause and employed a number of people who were Debian developers in their spare time.…

I just cross the whole bitch out and sign it.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#124

Post by willyt »

nraynaud wrote: post #85
koolba wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I give a similar reply when being asked to remove an interest penalty clause for late payment. " We always pay our bills on time so there's no need for that! " " Great! In that case you don't have to worry about every paying it either so we'll leave it in! "

Here in France the minimal penalty rate is set by law, and it's mandatory to put it on every bill, with the payment terms now. It's part of a crackdown on big companies crushing the smaller ones with unreasonable payment times.

UK has this too. Late Payments of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act. I think it is implementing an EU directive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Payment_of_Commercial_Deb...

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#125

Post by HNaTTY »

mooreds wrote: post #30

Horrifying. Always read your contracts and remember to abide by what you have signed, or don't sign at all. For companies, you all should be very clear on what your contract allows and doesn't allow. That will help everyone and allow folks to self select away from you if they need or want to. I understand the motivation of Gigster (own as much of the output of a developer as possible while at the same time pushing as…

Publicly shaming Gigster like we're doing here should help.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#126

Post by sqeaky »

mhneu wrote: post #109
uiri wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not draft up something to give to the company disclaiming all rights to your work? If lawyers are too expensive for the company, I'm sure they'll sign it right away! I'm guessing the HR person is just incompetent and the issue should be escalated. What exactly does a company think is going to be the outcome of saying "Oh, BTW, we might sue you for this, we might not and we're not going to give you a straight answ…

The company knows what the outcome is already: 99% of developers sign. So why should the company change?

I suspect that in the long run common contracts like that will become invalidated and a legal quagmire.

I have seen several contracts wanting to claim ownership over everything I write. I don't sign them, but it seems most people do and often do so at multiple contracting firms and employers. There are companies that should be having arguments with each over who own what contractors code.

Clearly this is not a reasonable situation and clearly it is unreasonable to try to screw a developer out of everything he owns and clearly it is hard to get a job without signing something like this. The runs afoul of anti-competition laws and basic decency. I am sure it will stand in some shitty jurisdictions and completely fail in others, but many already have some kind of work for pay law that transfers IP to the people paying for it by default and that seems pretty reasonable.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#127

Post by gargarplex »

Hi.

If any developers want a rundown on legal ideas (good explanations of "indemnification", "representations and warranties", etc.), we offer that in our book, Code For Cash. (https://www.breakingintoconsulting.com)

Peter Krumins said, "The legal stuff is excellent. I was always afraid of that and spent many thousands of dollars on various lawyers to make a good agreement, and there were no good guides about what the terms such as 'indemnification' mean. That is really well explained."

That's because the Legal Ideas chapter was written by a business attorney from Silicon Valley who has worked on both sides of the table.

If you sign up for our mailing list, you get the entire Legal Ideas chapter for free during day 2 or day 3 of the autoresponder campaign. You may also purchase the entire book for a severe discount by using the HN-only link in my profile.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#128

Post by sidchilling »

This is not just for contracts. Gigster does that even when recruiting. After three rounds of interview, I got a canned response that they are unable to take my application forward.

I asked them for feedback and got the same reply that they can't provide any feedback (even after 3 rounds of interviews).

I reached out to the developer who interviewed me and after a couple of days, he replied back saying that Gigster doesn't allow him to provide any feedback!

Avoid interviewing with them, in my opinion.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#129

Post by omouse »

throwaway212017 wrote: post #93
willstepp wrote: post #18

I interviewed to be a Gigster about a year and a half ago, and was accepted, but the more I considered it and saw how gigs were distributed (at that time mostly via Slack messages) I got a bad feeling, like I was a dog in a pack, fighting over meat scraps. It was then I realized the gig economy is not all sunshine and roses. All that to say, this doesn't surprise me, that Gigster doesn't have its workers best interes…

It hasn't changed. Gigster PMs seem to be in charge of staffing projects, but the strategy for connecting developers with projects is vague. They seem to look for either people they have worked with before, or people who are active on Slack (so if you are, for example, an Android dev, the advice is to be active on the Android Slack channel). PMs as a group hoard information on projects: devs have almost no visibility…

PMs as a group hoard information on projects: devs have almost no visibility into the current set of available, unstaffed gigs.

Their goal is to be remain necessary and collect a paycheck. They're middle-men and this is why I encourage devs to talk directly to clients and get used to solving client/customer/user problems through direct feedback rather than relying on the broken telephone system.

Also this is when unions and co-operatives start to look like a good idea. If Gigster and other sites like it were operated as co-operatives, where every freelancer is also a member of the organization, they wouldn't be so inclined to hire middle-men and to rip people off.

Re: An Email Thread Between a Developer and Gigster

#130

Post by Bartweiss »

ryanmarsh wrote: post #89
ekidd wrote: post #42

I've worked as a consultant for years. I occasionally employ a lawyer to review contracts with my clients. As a general rule of thumb, I'll only work for a client under one of three circumstances: 1. The client's standard contract is reasonable. This is rare. 2. The client's standard contract is unreasonable, but they're willing to cross-out or rewrite the objectionable bits before signing. This is very common. 3. It…

"It's OK to do a couple of those jobs when you're starting out" I don't think it's OK at all. Some people will, for various valid reasons, need to work for sites like this for a long time or indefinitely. Even for those who only have to rely upon sites like this for a short time this kind of exposure to risk is not ok. It shouldn't be allowed. Contracts that totally indemnify a company in a situation like this should…

> "Contractor agrees to indemnify Gigster from any and all claims, damages, liability, settlement, attorneys’ fees and expenses, as incurred, on account of the foregoing or any breach of this agreement"

There's no way that's legal, right? Like, you can have a broad indemnity clause, even for willful malfeasance. You can have a clause forcing arbitration. But Gigster's clause says "as part of this contract, you have no recourse if we intentionally violate this contract". Surely that's not legal, in the same sense that you can't sign a contract which flows entirely one direction. It literally states that Gigster can't be treated as having signed the contract they are currently signing.

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