Thought Police

[Victor Odhner]

Derek Neighbors wrote:
> To properly cover themselves for 'copyright' violations,
> they simply would need to have you sign some sort of
> disclaimer saying that would not use any prior work you
> have copyrighted in anything you do for them and if you
> do that they are given copyright for it.

Well actually, nothing I sign is going to protect them
from anything.  All the work I've done in the past has
been for someone else, and does not "belong" to me.
Some has been destined for GPL, but is not yet released.
I HAVE NO POWER over the stuff I have written, and am
not in freedom to pass it out.

So I could get them into trouble by using something that
supposedly "belongs" to someone else.  Of course we would
not do that, but if we did, there they would be holding
the bag.

In general, what impressed me the most about that
agreement was that it could not really do the company
any good.  Of course if I were to come up with something
that might apply to their business and try to sell or
publish it while working for them, then the agreement
could have some effect.  How often could something like
this really happen?

Now, GNU Enterprise is probably applicable to the
banking business.  I don't know if they turn away
excellent resources who won't sign, or if they are
willing to customize the agreement.  Since banks are
now getting into Free Software, I'm sure they are
going to get tripped up by this kind of thing.

Simple facts:

 There is no substitute for due diligence.
 Employees can make or break a corporation,
 regardless of how many things they have signed.

 What differentiates a business and makes money for it
 is generally the expertise of its people and the
 goodwill of their customers, not some slick nifty
 software innovation.

It appears sometimes that the worst enemy of business
is business itself.  I'm much happier to be a nerd who
can pontificate about this stuff but doesn't have to
run a corporation and let the suits lead me around by
the nose.

Vic