Live data from Hacker News

Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

github.com

31–40 of 151 posts

Re: Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

#31
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's written by a Google employee, and therefore Google owns all rights to it. However, in all other respects it's just an open source project written and supported in the authors' free time.

How could Google own something written and supported in the authors' free time?

The Google employee thought the contract terms were worth the job so signed it

Re: Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

#32
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's written by a Google employee, and therefore Google owns all rights to it. However, in all other respects it's just an open source project written and supported in the authors' free time.

How could Google own something written and supported in the authors' free time?

If Google resources were used to create it (machines, the author's 20% time, google tools, etc), or if the author lives in a state/country without moonlighting protections.

I guess the former, and the author might be doing it as a 20% project owned by Google in the hopes of making it a larger, more successful project.

Re: Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

#35
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's written by a Google employee, and therefore Google owns all rights to it. However, in all other respects it's just an open source project written and supported in the authors' free time.

How could Google own something written and supported in the authors' free time?

"Free time" can mean time spent on the job not contributing to his delegated tasks, such as 20% time.

Re: Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

#36
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's written by a Google employee, and therefore Google owns all rights to it. However, in all other respects it's just an open source project written and supported in the authors' free time.

How could Google own something written and supported in the authors' free time?

If you work at Google everything you make, even in your spare time, belongs to them. That's how the contracts work, unfortunately.

Re: Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

#37
We're seeing a lot of different formats lately. So to make this more generic, I'm thinking we should move to an encoding-independent format. That is, the file contains an encoding-id, and the decoder can be downloaded from a standard location (a website run by a standards organization) using the encoding-id as a reference. Of course, this can be cached.

The decoder can be in different formats, e.g. bytecode, WASM, i386, ARM, etcetera. But of course, any binary decoders should be verified by the standards organization before it is published.

Re: Pik – a new lossy image format for the internet

#39
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could Google own something written and supported in the authors' free time?

If you work at Google everything you make, even in your spare time, belongs to them. That's how the contracts work, unfortunately.

That's not true, at least not in California. But if you made it with Google resources then yes they own it.
Post reply on HN