IBM employee forced to stop kernel work under personal email address(git.kernel.org)
git.kernel.org
IBM employee forced to stop kernel work under personal email address
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net.git/commit/?id=4acd47644ef1e1c8f8f5bc40b7cf1c5b9bcbbc4e
469 comments
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
This seems very much the case sadly ... a friend of mine is working as a software engineer at IBM (in Europe) and they indeed are not allowed to use their personal accounts to make open source contributions in their spare time. They would have to ask IBM legal to sign off on everything. Sad life.
This seems very much the case sadly ... a friend of mine is working as a software engineer at IBM (in Europe) and they indeed are not allowed to use their personal accounts to make open source contributions in their spare time. They would have to ask IBM legal to sign off on everything. Sad life.
That was also the case for CSIRO, Australia's largest government scientific organisation, when I worked there years ago. We had a lot of open source collaboration products but they were tightly managed and approved.
Legal were so backlogged that approval for anything other than a strategic project was impossible.
I was not allowed to submit work to unapproved projects, other than my personal stuff I'd listed as my own IP on being hired.
It's usually about IP protection ahead of brand protection.
Legal were so backlogged that approval for anything other than a strategic project was impossible.
I was not allowed to submit work to unapproved projects, other than my personal stuff I'd listed as my own IP on being hired.
It's usually about IP protection ahead of brand protection.
This must be illegal in many places in Europe, though.
Sounds like a statement you could use to invoice for a whole lot of overtime payment.
I believe you, but what makes this illegal? I'm not familiar with the laws or protections around this.
It depends on what jurisdiction you're in, but for example in California:
2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....
2870. (a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
(1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or
(2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.
(b) To the extent a provision in an employment agreement purports to require an employee to assign an invention otherwise excluded from being required to be assigned under subdivision (a), the provision is against the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio....
i have heard that the problem with this is that #1 ("relate to the employer's business") can potentially be interpreted to include most / nearly all tech if the employer is a Big Tech Co (due to the enormous scope of technical projects/ventures these companies have).
i am curious what if any precedent exists here.
obligatory IANAL
i am curious what if any precedent exists here.
obligatory IANAL
Inventions are protected by patents though?
The problem here is around intellectual property, not patents, no?
The problem here is around intellectual property, not patents, no?
As a human being you are entitled to personal time.
> As a human being you are entitled to personal time.
I wonder about this in 2021. Social media and ubiquitous recording has changed what seems like an obvious truth into something more complex. A company employee badmouthing customers? A police officer who posts something racist? Attending a political demonstration? An employee who's working on a competing product in their spare time?
I don't have answers to these, but somewhere, the line became blurry.
I wonder about this in 2021. Social media and ubiquitous recording has changed what seems like an obvious truth into something more complex. A company employee badmouthing customers? A police officer who posts something racist? Attending a political demonstration? An employee who's working on a competing product in their spare time?
I don't have answers to these, but somewhere, the line became blurry.
> somewhere, the line became blurry
Yeah, I think it's mainly internet, specifically because:
* the things that you posted during your free time remain visible also during your work time;
* websites optimize for engagement and ad views, so if you happen to write something controversial, they will try to show it to as many people as possible;
* many websites require you to use your real name, making things easier to connect to your real-life identity and employers (also to match across websites);
* the "social networks" encourage you to discuss various unrelated topics on the same website under the same account, again making it easier to connect things together.
Compare it with our social life before internet:
* if you say something in a pub, your boss is not there;
* most of the things you say, people will quickly forget;
* if someone quotes you, you can deny it;
* a social norm against snitching (if someone reports on what you said among your friends to your boss, most likely the friends will shun that person).
Seems to me that most of these bad things are driven by advertising -- the same rules that make it easier for advertisers to connect all dots about your life, also make it easy for your boss, and for someone who wants to report on you to your boss. Also, seems to me that Google and Facebook are the major forces behind this trend -- most other websites either don't feel entitled to know and display my real name, or they are easy to ignore.
Yeah, I think it's mainly internet, specifically because:
* the things that you posted during your free time remain visible also during your work time;
* websites optimize for engagement and ad views, so if you happen to write something controversial, they will try to show it to as many people as possible;
* many websites require you to use your real name, making things easier to connect to your real-life identity and employers (also to match across websites);
* the "social networks" encourage you to discuss various unrelated topics on the same website under the same account, again making it easier to connect things together.
Compare it with our social life before internet:
* if you say something in a pub, your boss is not there;
* most of the things you say, people will quickly forget;
* if someone quotes you, you can deny it;
* a social norm against snitching (if someone reports on what you said among your friends to your boss, most likely the friends will shun that person).
Seems to me that most of these bad things are driven by advertising -- the same rules that make it easier for advertisers to connect all dots about your life, also make it easy for your boss, and for someone who wants to report on you to your boss. Also, seems to me that Google and Facebook are the major forces behind this trend -- most other websites either don't feel entitled to know and display my real name, or they are easy to ignore.
That's not what docmars asked though.
Agree. But it takes power to enforce it.
Welcome to IBM. It’s an old school worldview.
I don't think it's meant literally. Only that you "represent" IBM all the time, even if not technically working for them. This is a fairly common stance AIUI.
It's a common stance, just unpopular with workers.
Very popular with employers, of course: You get to avoid the minor risk of them embarrassing you; you reduce their job market value by preventing them from having a portfolio or any public profile; you remove non-work distractions from their free time; and you get to vacuum up any IP they generate outside of work hours.
So naturally, employers want to normalise the idea.
Very popular with employers, of course: You get to avoid the minor risk of them embarrassing you; you reduce their job market value by preventing them from having a portfolio or any public profile; you remove non-work distractions from their free time; and you get to vacuum up any IP they generate outside of work hours.
So naturally, employers want to normalise the idea.
I see it more as an inevitability of the growing online nature. As long as people use their personal name on social media and have an obvious link to their line of work, any and everything you say represents your work. For better or worse. And what you say can persist for years unlike before.
I didn't take the statement as "we own all your time" so much as "you represent the company at all times".
I didn't take the statement as "we own all your time" so much as "you represent the company at all times".
>you remove non-work distractions from their free time
I don't think the narrative is usually "you can't work on anything else"; it's that you can't claim to have two jobs.
>you reduce their job market value by preventing them from having a portfolio or any public profile
It's not clear to me that "[email protected]" vs "[email protected]" changes the equation on portfolio lookup by any significant degree.
>you get to vacuum up any IP they generate outside of work hours
This seems to me the only real significant part of the equation, and by far the dangerous one -- a benevolent company will generally not care if your side projects are unrelated to you main project, but ultimately the decision is entirely their's, leaving a gaping hole of largely unnecessary risk.
The justification however is really that it becomes murky really quickly -- your generated IP is usually in the same vein as what you do at work (you work at what you're good at, and you presumably need to be good at X to produce new IP in it). So it quickly becomes questionable how much of that IP was really just you pulling on resources/knowledge/equipment from your working environment.
I don't think the narrative is usually "you can't work on anything else"; it's that you can't claim to have two jobs.
>you reduce their job market value by preventing them from having a portfolio or any public profile
It's not clear to me that "[email protected]" vs "[email protected]" changes the equation on portfolio lookup by any significant degree.
>you get to vacuum up any IP they generate outside of work hours
This seems to me the only real significant part of the equation, and by far the dangerous one -- a benevolent company will generally not care if your side projects are unrelated to you main project, but ultimately the decision is entirely their's, leaving a gaping hole of largely unnecessary risk.
The justification however is really that it becomes murky really quickly -- your generated IP is usually in the same vein as what you do at work (you work at what you're good at, and you presumably need to be good at X to produce new IP in it). So it quickly becomes questionable how much of that IP was really just you pulling on resources/knowledge/equipment from your working environment.
> I don't think the narrative is usually "you can't work on anything else"; it's that you can't claim to have two jobs.
In the case we're talking about, the employee was told they can't work on the kernel in their free time. Clearly not a second job.
> It's not clear to me that "[email protected]" vs "[email protected]" changes the equation on portfolio lookup by any significant degree.
In this case, they were told they couldn't work on the kernel even under their personal e-mail address - and to remove the credit for work they'd already done. Seems pretty clear-cut to me?
In the case we're talking about, the employee was told they can't work on the kernel in their free time. Clearly not a second job.
> It's not clear to me that "[email protected]" vs "[email protected]" changes the equation on portfolio lookup by any significant degree.
In this case, they were told they couldn't work on the kernel even under their personal e-mail address - and to remove the credit for work they'd already done. Seems pretty clear-cut to me?
I’m not sure what you’re reading but it’s not what I’m reading.
TFA only talks about working under gmail vs ibm email; it says nothing about not working on it period (perhaps by removal from maintainer’s file? But I read that as switch it with it the IBM email, since that’s all it talks about otherwise.)
TFA only talks about working under gmail vs ibm email; it says nothing about not working on it period (perhaps by removal from maintainer’s file? But I read that as switch it with it the IBM email, since that’s all it talks about otherwise.)
You're being employed by IBM for 100% of the time, but you're working 40h of your time.
When it's weekend, then you aren't stopping being employed by your company, aren't you?
edit.
is this whole thread some peak of HN? when you're leaving your Google office, then you aren't magically stopping being Googler.
Same way with universities - if you attend e.g Harvard and then do a lot of shit even outside the school, then you should expect to be kicked or punished at best.
You're more or less representing them.
When it's weekend, then you aren't stopping being employed by your company, aren't you?
edit.
is this whole thread some peak of HN? when you're leaving your Google office, then you aren't magically stopping being Googler.
Same way with universities - if you attend e.g Harvard and then do a lot of shit even outside the school, then you should expect to be kicked or punished at best.
You're more or less representing them.
> You're being employed by IBM for 100% of the time, but you're working 40h of your time
Then they should pay 168 hours / week and not 40
> You're more or less representing them.
No you don't
Then they should pay 168 hours / week and not 40
> You're more or less representing them.
No you don't
Most software engineers in the US are paid by the day, not the hour.
>Then they should pay 168 hours / week and not 40
You just basically rewrite what guy that I responded to wrote, nothing more.
You agreed to get $your_salary for X hours of work and being connected to that company.
If you worked in some industry like porn or at facebook, then somebody may use it against you and I don't think
saying "No I didn't work for them" is going to work for ya
>No you don't
Then why shitton of Googler and other people uses "opinions are mine"?
because they're Googlers even outside office hours
Maybe you're not representing them "directly", but you definitely do indirectly.
You just basically rewrite what guy that I responded to wrote, nothing more.
You agreed to get $your_salary for X hours of work and being connected to that company.
If you worked in some industry like porn or at facebook, then somebody may use it against you and I don't think
saying "No I didn't work for them" is going to work for ya
>No you don't
Then why shitton of Googler and other people uses "opinions are mine"?
because they're Googlers even outside office hours
Maybe you're not representing them "directly", but you definitely do indirectly.
> is this whole thread some peak of HN? when you're leaving your Google office, then you aren't magically stopping being Googler.
The hell means 'being Googler'? I'm not a Xer because I'm employed at X. Wake up.
The hell means 'being Googler'? I'm not a Xer because I'm employed at X. Wake up.
>The hell means 'being Googler'?
a person who works at google. That's an official name for them, much like how college alumni may call each other their mascot. I wouldn't read too much into it.
a person who works at google. That's an official name for them, much like how college alumni may call each other their mascot. I wouldn't read too much into it.
Maybe you're not Xer, but you're definitely "being employed by X", just because your company may have to same fancy naming due to its name does not change anything
I think unfortunately you are mistaken. Lots of large US companies do this and it's contractual - you sign a paper that they own any IP you create even on your own time.
CALIFORNIA CODES, LABOR CODE SECTION 2870-2872
"
2870 (a) Any provision in an employment agreement stating that an employee should assign any of his rights in an invention to his employer shall not apply to an invention which the employee develops totally on his time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for the inventions which:
2871 Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or anticipated research or development of the employer
2872 Result from any work done by the employee for the employer.
"
In the state of California clauses assigning _all_ IP to the employer in an employment contract are not legal, and hence unenforceable.
"
2870 (a) Any provision in an employment agreement stating that an employee should assign any of his rights in an invention to his employer shall not apply to an invention which the employee develops totally on his time without using the employer's equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for the inventions which:
2871 Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or anticipated research or development of the employer
2872 Result from any work done by the employee for the employer.
"
In the state of California clauses assigning _all_ IP to the employer in an employment contract are not legal, and hence unenforceable.
> 2871 Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or anticipated research or development of the employer
I don't know where this guy is based, but his IBM email address is @linux.ibm.com, so arguably his work on the Linux kernel may be conceived as "relating to the employer's business."
I don't know where this guy is based, but his IBM email address is @linux.ibm.com, so arguably his work on the Linux kernel may be conceived as "relating to the employer's business."
And further, here is the relevant legislation in other states;
Delaware 19 Del.C. s 805
Illinois 765 I.L.C.S. 1060/2
Kansas K.S.A. 44-130
Minnesota M.S.A. 181.78
North Carolina G.S. s 66-57.1
Washington RCWA 49.44.140, 150
Utah UT ST s 34-39-1, 2, 3
Delaware 19 Del.C. s 805
Illinois 765 I.L.C.S. 1060/2
Kansas K.S.A. 44-130
Minnesota M.S.A. 181.78
North Carolina G.S. s 66-57.1
Washington RCWA 49.44.140, 150
Utah UT ST s 34-39-1, 2, 3
That doesn't apply here because the work in question is on an IBM driver, so the exceptions clearly apply.
> 2871 Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or anticipated research or development of the employer
IMO this is the gray area. Could IBM make a reasonable case that this kernel work is related to / close to / similar to what IBM is doing? Could they have learned something, even just a rejected -- but proprietary -- approach from an internal project... that kinda ends up on the kernel?
I agree with the consensus that IBM is in the wrong here... but lawyers might be able to prove otherwise.
IMO this is the gray area. Could IBM make a reasonable case that this kernel work is related to / close to / similar to what IBM is doing? Could they have learned something, even just a rejected -- but proprietary -- approach from an internal project... that kinda ends up on the kernel?
I agree with the consensus that IBM is in the wrong here... but lawyers might be able to prove otherwise.
Okay 49 other states?
All the ones I have signed only claim IP directly related to the company's business model.
Obviously that gets trickier if the company is like, Microsoft which at least has tried to make every kind of software imaginable. But most companies do pretty much one thing, and I am free to develop whatever else besides that on my own time. It seems reasonable.
Obviously that gets trickier if the company is like, Microsoft which at least has tried to make every kind of software imaginable. But most companies do pretty much one thing, and I am free to develop whatever else besides that on my own time. It seems reasonable.
This is completely legal in many states, such as NY.
The statement goes far beyond any contractual obligation. But I agree, it is a mistake to sign away all intellectual property rights and such a contract is legally binding. It isn't clear that such a contract exists here.
I always search for these paragraphs and mark them out, and let them know that I marked out the sections. They're free to redraft them or leave the marked up version. Otherwise it's time to hit the road.
What kind of a dummy would work for a company that makes you sign that.
The kind of dummy who enjoys having things like rent, food and healthcare.
I'm reminded of a Berkeley CA bumper sticker:
Visualize Rent
Visualize Rent
But not doing enough research to learn that there are a ton of other jobs out there that may as much or more than the dishonest scammer job pays.
If they offer a high salary and you have no plans to self-develop hobby projects on the side, then that may not be a breaking factor.
In any case, these laws are hard to enforce unless you are working on company hardware. And people who really care may sign off existing projects to get around this.
In any case, these laws are hard to enforce unless you are working on company hardware. And people who really care may sign off existing projects to get around this.
Have you checked how many employees IBM has ?
If you are salaried, your 40 hours a week is just the minimum. Some employers respect the 40 hours, some expect you to work well past that number until the job is done.
That does not mean they can order you around like a slave. What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot eat at a particular restaurant, or eat pasta? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot sleep on a spring mattress? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot walk a dog on the weekend? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he can invest in a mutual fund? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot help his neighbor in his garden? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot pee while standing? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot get a divorce? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot help his dad with a computer problem? What if IBM tells him that as an IBM employee he cannot answer a stack overflow query?
Unfortunately in at will employment states in the USA, a company could fire you for most of those things if they wanted to and it would be within their rights to do so. As long as they are not discriminating against a protected class they can fire you for almost anything.
I would like to see them try to make that stick in court with an example like, we don't allow our employees to eat chicken or they are fired.
The only place I've seen that is cash strapped and personnel short startups.
I posted this below but will post it again ...
Before you rail on how wrong this is for a company to do, please read this article by Joel on the subject.
This is a super difficult topic for corporations that most don't realize and the article below walks through those dynamics.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
Before you rail on how wrong this is for a company to do, please read this article by Joel on the subject.
This is a super difficult topic for corporations that most don't realize and the article below walks through those dynamics.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
I don't think the JoelOnSoftware article is that informative for this situation.
The IBM employee is being forced to represent IBM under his official email alias regardless of whether the IBM employee acknowledges IBM owns his work product around the clock.
The IBM employee is being forced to represent IBM under his official email alias regardless of whether the IBM employee acknowledges IBM owns his work product around the clock.
You are completely missing the point. Nobody forces IBM to act this way. Sure they can - legally. It's still morally wrong.
Some additional context:
Lijun Pan was listed in MAINTAINERS for IBM's VNIC driver with their IBM email up until 3 days ago, when they changed their email to their personal address and changed themselves from M ("Mail") to R ("Reviewer")[0].
Then, today, they received these instructions: "Please remove yourself completely from the maintainers file. I grant you a 1 time exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change."
It looks to me like there's been a change in the organization--either in this employee's assignment or in their policies surrounding contributing to their VNIC driver--that this employee was trying to bypass by identifying their commits as now being part of a personal hobby.
[0] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6b389c16378a03fe71f...
Lijun Pan was listed in MAINTAINERS for IBM's VNIC driver with their IBM email up until 3 days ago, when they changed their email to their personal address and changed themselves from M ("Mail") to R ("Reviewer")[0].
Then, today, they received these instructions: "Please remove yourself completely from the maintainers file. I grant you a 1 time exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change."
It looks to me like there's been a change in the organization--either in this employee's assignment or in their policies surrounding contributing to their VNIC driver--that this employee was trying to bypass by identifying their commits as now being part of a personal hobby.
[0] https://github.com/torvalds/linux/commit/6b389c16378a03fe71f...
Counterpoint: this employee wasn't trying to "bypass" anything. The change from maintainer to reviewer only means they wanted to be in copy of patches/emails in order to provide feedback; providing reviewer time is basic etiquette in the linux kernel.
You're missing that they added their personnal email in the maintainer file by using their ibm email, in the commit where they were supposed to remove themselves.
Employees giving themselves personnal privileges using company resources, while being specifically asked to remove themselves from those that they had has employee, is vastly different context than "he was there as a hobby and ibm cracked down on him".
Employees giving themselves personnal privileges using company resources, while being specifically asked to remove themselves from those that they had has employee, is vastly different context than "he was there as a hobby and ibm cracked down on him".
Being unpaid reviewer is not privilege that is a duty.
Claiming that reviewing patches is a "privilege" is bad for the kernel, and bad for IBM.
Claiming that reviewing patches is a "privilege" is bad for the kernel, and bad for IBM.
I'm reading 'privilege' here in the computer user permissions sense, not the moral/duty/rights sense.
Regardless, it's not a great look for anyone involved here.
Regardless, it's not a great look for anyone involved here.
>Employees giving themselves personnal privileges using company resources,
They swapped from their work email to the personal email, which indicates, they won't be working on it during work time.
This is an open-source project and isn't the same as adding another GitHub user to a private org or something.
They swapped from their work email to the personal email, which indicates, they won't be working on it during work time.
This is an open-source project and isn't the same as adding another GitHub user to a private org or something.
And what authority did they have to add someone (themselves on personal email)? None personal. The one that they had as an employee.
Would they had been added to that list using their personal email if they removed themselves THEN asked someone with the authority to do so to add them back on their personal account? Everything points to no. Ergo they misused their employees position.
Would they had been added to that list using their personal email if they removed themselves THEN asked someone with the authority to do so to add them back on their personal account? Everything points to no. Ergo they misused their employees position.
The Linux kernel maintainer list isn't IBMs to grant or deny permission to. The other kernel maintainers had no objections to Lijun staying on as a reviewer, just IBM did.
> Would they had been added to that list using their personal email if they removed themselves THEN asked someone with the authority to do so to add them back on their personal account? Everything points to no.
What makes you say this? No commits make it into the official Linux kernel without being peer-reviewed and approved. The original change was signed off by another (non-IBM) maintainer, and would have to be signed-off again by Linus before making it into the official kernel. There have been many cases where a developer stopped working on the kernel in a professional capacity, but continued to do so in a personal capacity, and none of the Linux maintainers objected to this. Why would they? The developer has valuable experience and knowledge about the code base.
I don't see any aspect of abuse of authority/privilege here, just an employee/employer contract dispute.
> Would they had been added to that list using their personal email if they removed themselves THEN asked someone with the authority to do so to add them back on their personal account? Everything points to no.
What makes you say this? No commits make it into the official Linux kernel without being peer-reviewed and approved. The original change was signed off by another (non-IBM) maintainer, and would have to be signed-off again by Linus before making it into the official kernel. There have been many cases where a developer stopped working on the kernel in a professional capacity, but continued to do so in a personal capacity, and none of the Linux maintainers objected to this. Why would they? The developer has valuable experience and knowledge about the code base.
I don't see any aspect of abuse of authority/privilege here, just an employee/employer contract dispute.
I am not missing how they changed emails, I was in fact commenting on that. Being reviewer (vs maintainer) is not having any special privilege, it's just subscribing to emails.
We don't know the full story here.
IBM allows open source work. But there are rules, particularly about transparency. Just consider the sco lawsuit that won't die, and you may get an inkling why. This person appears to be in the open source / linux part of ibm. IBMers all must accept open source contribution guidelines. It sounds like this person simply didn't fully follow. Managers response may have been heavy handed but again none of us here knows details unless somebody provides them.
I notice there's four other ibm addresses so there is a story there.
Disclaimer and disclosure - IBMer who contributed openly and with management awareness and never got this kind of stern instruction :-/
IBM allows open source work. But there are rules, particularly about transparency. Just consider the sco lawsuit that won't die, and you may get an inkling why. This person appears to be in the open source / linux part of ibm. IBMers all must accept open source contribution guidelines. It sounds like this person simply didn't fully follow. Managers response may have been heavy handed but again none of us here knows details unless somebody provides them.
I notice there's four other ibm addresses so there is a story there.
Disclaimer and disclosure - IBMer who contributed openly and with management awareness and never got this kind of stern instruction :-/
IBMer her also. I don't know the VNIC initiative but it might be a question of contract, where all IBMers working on that specific open source project need to clearly disclose (being an IBMer) and the email is the way to do it (IBM might measure the participation).
Might also be a question of tracking a "conflict of interest", where the professional in question might work on a similar proprietary product inside the company.
IBM certainly allows you to do your side gigs, but you need to be transparent with the company about what it is and that there is no conflict with your work.
Might also be a question of tracking a "conflict of interest", where the professional in question might work on a similar proprietary product inside the company.
IBM certainly allows you to do your side gigs, but you need to be transparent with the company about what it is and that there is no conflict with your work.
Thanks for this. I felt myself reaching for the pitchfork. There are too many unknowns here. No one really wins in situations like these.
Unless proprietary tech is used, I think I would advocate for laws protecting people from being restricted working on projects that provides such a public good... but that is another argument entirely.
Unless proprietary tech is used, I think I would advocate for laws protecting people from being restricted working on projects that provides such a public good... but that is another argument entirely.
what state did you work in? did you pre-approve the work?
I'm actually a happy IBMer (unpopular opinion here I'm sure:), and happen to have a great long term relationship with my management chain, so I inform them of everything, both in a friendly and official capacity. Makes everything easy. I even told my boss when I had a completely unrelated side business (music at parties) etc.
When it comes to open source contributions, both business conduct guidelines and open source mandatory yearly certs are unambiguous about transparency and approval of open source contributions. So it's pretty mandatory I think to inform, and limited if any impetus not to open open about it.
Working for a big corporation is a bit cyberpunky/Snowcrashy in that way I suppose.
When it comes to open source contributions, both business conduct guidelines and open source mandatory yearly certs are unambiguous about transparency and approval of open source contributions. So it's pretty mandatory I think to inform, and limited if any impetus not to open open about it.
Working for a big corporation is a bit cyberpunky/Snowcrashy in that way I suppose.
Sounds like a simple misunderstanding to me. Employee thought they were doing something acceptable to formally disengage from the project and just wanted to monitor traffic. IBM interpreted it as an attempted end-run-around. Not surprised, virtualization stuff is still in demand, sounds like typical IBM-internal perl-clutching going on.
I used to work in Global Services for a few years starting in 1999 when I was fresh out of school (on-site "Customer Engineer" for hardware break/fix). I don't think all divisions have the same requirements, but we had to sign documents explaining IBM owned everything we created on our free time at hire-in. I was young but I had built enough software and hardware projects by then that I realized this was a bad deal. Linux was just starting to get enterprise recognition and open source in general was starting to really take off. My manager and others all laughed when I pushed back on signing this, "what does this kid thing he's going to invent on his own time?".
I filled out the paperwork noting the exceptions of things I had already built. However because my location was fairly distant from any central IBM office I rarely saw my manager (he worked about 80 miles away from my location). Once I realized this paperwork never got filed I just let it drop. When I left the company I noticed they had this same paper signing over all my IP rights to IBM at my exit interview. I was still young and dumb so I signed it rather than telling them to get bent. However I had been so busy those years that I hadn't done much of anything in my free time. But yea this sucks and it's a thing. Yet another reason why anonymity is still needed in the modern world.
I used to work in Global Services for a few years starting in 1999 when I was fresh out of school (on-site "Customer Engineer" for hardware break/fix). I don't think all divisions have the same requirements, but we had to sign documents explaining IBM owned everything we created on our free time at hire-in. I was young but I had built enough software and hardware projects by then that I realized this was a bad deal. Linux was just starting to get enterprise recognition and open source in general was starting to really take off. My manager and others all laughed when I pushed back on signing this, "what does this kid thing he's going to invent on his own time?".
I filled out the paperwork noting the exceptions of things I had already built. However because my location was fairly distant from any central IBM office I rarely saw my manager (he worked about 80 miles away from my location). Once I realized this paperwork never got filed I just let it drop. When I left the company I noticed they had this same paper signing over all my IP rights to IBM at my exit interview. I was still young and dumb so I signed it rather than telling them to get bent. However I had been so busy those years that I hadn't done much of anything in my free time. But yea this sucks and it's a thing. Yet another reason why anonymity is still needed in the modern world.
> perl-clutching
Was that intentional? Because it's brilliant!
Was that intentional? Because it's brilliant!
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
One way I interpret this, is code of conduct. I worked for a bank for a long time. You were always expected to abide by the code of conduct outside of standard hours. Generally the bank's code basically said be a good member of society. So, in the IBM context it's possible there is an agreement or code where it says they can work on software projects, but they need to identify themselves as IBM employees at all times. I'm just speculating here.
Also possible that they literally may have an agreement forbidding them from participating in software projects, or that IBM has the rights to all IP that they might think up on their own time while on salary.
I remember one agreement many years ago when I worked in IT, that said the company had the rights to whatever I thought up while working for them and it didn't specify that it had to be directly related to their area of business. So if I wrote a sequel to Gone with the Wind, they would have had the rights to it.
One way I interpret this, is code of conduct. I worked for a bank for a long time. You were always expected to abide by the code of conduct outside of standard hours. Generally the bank's code basically said be a good member of society. So, in the IBM context it's possible there is an agreement or code where it says they can work on software projects, but they need to identify themselves as IBM employees at all times. I'm just speculating here.
Also possible that they literally may have an agreement forbidding them from participating in software projects, or that IBM has the rights to all IP that they might think up on their own time while on salary.
I remember one agreement many years ago when I worked in IT, that said the company had the rights to whatever I thought up while working for them and it didn't specify that it had to be directly related to their area of business. So if I wrote a sequel to Gone with the Wind, they would have had the rights to it.
(Context - I've worked for IBM on two non-consecutive occasions, do not currently, speak only for myself etc)
It may also vary by geography.
Between 2005-2012ish, IBM UK and IBM Australia didn't claim ownership of IP created on your own time, and I wouldn't have wanted to sign up if they had, but they did require you to consult them and seek permission before becoming heavily involved in FOSS and contributing to public OSS projects. This was for several reasons, IIRC -
It may also vary by geography.
Between 2005-2012ish, IBM UK and IBM Australia didn't claim ownership of IP created on your own time, and I wouldn't have wanted to sign up if they had, but they did require you to consult them and seek permission before becoming heavily involved in FOSS and contributing to public OSS projects. This was for several reasons, IIRC -
- To make sure you weren't competing with their business
- To make sure you weren't leaking IBM IP
- To make sure you weren't bringing IP into IBM that might cause issues (think SCO)
> So if I wrote a sequel to Gone with the Wind, they would have had the rights to it.
Edit - I should have asked for clarification, do you mean when you are on the clock or off the clock? I interpreted your comment as the latter and wrote my comment below with that in mind.
Is the practice of companies owning the rights to software you make on your own time commonplace?!?! I am a student and I really want to go into the field of computer science, however whenever I read stuff like this it is incredibly disheartening.
Also the semi-recent Nginx ownership rights issue comes to mind.
Edit - I should have asked for clarification, do you mean when you are on the clock or off the clock? I interpreted your comment as the latter and wrote my comment below with that in mind.
Is the practice of companies owning the rights to software you make on your own time commonplace?!?! I am a student and I really want to go into the field of computer science, however whenever I read stuff like this it is incredibly disheartening.
Also the semi-recent Nginx ownership rights issue comes to mind.
Honestly, depends on the company and the state you're working in. It's all anecdotal, so take the following with a grain of salt.
I've worked for startups in Washington and California. In Washington, there was an invention clause in my contracts, but in practice it was a) practically unenforceable and b) as long as you divorced your work identity from your personal identity, nobody cared. This meant not having a way of tracing an anonymous handle or email to you working for the company. In California, I've never seen an invention clause in my contracts, but they were also much better at divorcing your work and personal identity systematically (forcing you to use a github account specific to the company, not mentioning this handle on your personal account, etc.).
In any case, keeping your work and personal work completely separate (no competition between work and individual ideas, no shared hardware) is a good idea and won't raise as many eyebrows. Some companies will be more aggressive about owning what you do, so if it matters to you then ask about the clause before signing the contract.
I've worked for startups in Washington and California. In Washington, there was an invention clause in my contracts, but in practice it was a) practically unenforceable and b) as long as you divorced your work identity from your personal identity, nobody cared. This meant not having a way of tracing an anonymous handle or email to you working for the company. In California, I've never seen an invention clause in my contracts, but they were also much better at divorcing your work and personal identity systematically (forcing you to use a github account specific to the company, not mentioning this handle on your personal account, etc.).
In any case, keeping your work and personal work completely separate (no competition between work and individual ideas, no shared hardware) is a good idea and won't raise as many eyebrows. Some companies will be more aggressive about owning what you do, so if it matters to you then ask about the clause before signing the contract.
> In California, I've never seen an invention clause in my contracts, but they were also much better at divorcing your work and personal identity systematically (forcing you to use a github account specific to the company, not mentioning this handle on your personal account, etc.).
California has a state law that covers this. Any work you do on your own time, with your own resources (so, not your company laptop or photocopier) is your own and the company cannot force you to assign it - so long as the work is not connected to your employers current or reasonably anticipated business.
More details here: http://www.intellectualpropertylawfirms.com/resources/intell...
California has a state law that covers this. Any work you do on your own time, with your own resources (so, not your company laptop or photocopier) is your own and the company cannot force you to assign it - so long as the work is not connected to your employers current or reasonably anticipated business.
More details here: http://www.intellectualpropertylawfirms.com/resources/intell...
In practice, though, even in CA, I would suggest employees always get something from their company, in writing, disclaiming any ownership of any project they decide to start or work on (in any large capacity), especially if it's a software project and they work for a software company.
Even if you truly believe what you're working on has nothing to do with your employer's line of business, they may disagree, and even if they're wrong, they can make your life difficult and expensive while you try to prove them wrong.
It makes me sad that this is a thing I feel I need to suggest, but I think it's the prudent move, and many companies will even have a fairly painless, well-defined process for doing this.
Even if you truly believe what you're working on has nothing to do with your employer's line of business, they may disagree, and even if they're wrong, they can make your life difficult and expensive while you try to prove them wrong.
It makes me sad that this is a thing I feel I need to suggest, but I think it's the prudent move, and many companies will even have a fairly painless, well-defined process for doing this.
That's a great call-out, and one that's particularly relevant when you work at bigger companies. For instance, what can you confidently say isn't part of Apple's reasonably anticipated future business?
Suspected this but didn't want to claim anything I couldn't back up. Thanks for the link!
You make it sound so calm and settled!
as a young developer in California Silicon Valley area, I saw companies try to create 24-7 blanket enforcement of IP rights, solely to increase control and profits; I also saw coders definitely steal company IP and try to start new companies. That State law you are referring to was passed long after this battle was underway, and I can tell you that companies definitely denied that the law existed, said it was unfair, and also paid lawyers to write contracts that tried to take employee IP anyway, and use sales tactics on new employees to accept it.
as a young developer in California Silicon Valley area, I saw companies try to create 24-7 blanket enforcement of IP rights, solely to increase control and profits; I also saw coders definitely steal company IP and try to start new companies. That State law you are referring to was passed long after this battle was underway, and I can tell you that companies definitely denied that the law existed, said it was unfair, and also paid lawyers to write contracts that tried to take employee IP anyway, and use sales tactics on new employees to accept it.
> whenever I read stuff like this it is incredibly disheartening
Its not something to worry about most of the time. At least here in Australia the below situation would be very unenforceable
> if I wrote a sequel to Gone with the Wind, they would have had the rights to it.
A company buys your time and the IP in and around the industry your job is in. Like you can't steal customers, you can't steal IP. If you're paid to come up with a new product/idea you can't just resign and become a competitor you'll get sued for that.
But if your a programmer and write a sequel to Gone with the Wind even if your contract states that the company owns your ideas it won't stand up in a court if the company tries to take ownership. So long as you didn't use company hardware or information which can only be gotten at that company.
Its not something to worry about most of the time. At least here in Australia the below situation would be very unenforceable
> if I wrote a sequel to Gone with the Wind, they would have had the rights to it.
A company buys your time and the IP in and around the industry your job is in. Like you can't steal customers, you can't steal IP. If you're paid to come up with a new product/idea you can't just resign and become a competitor you'll get sued for that.
But if your a programmer and write a sequel to Gone with the Wind even if your contract states that the company owns your ideas it won't stand up in a court if the company tries to take ownership. So long as you didn't use company hardware or information which can only be gotten at that company.
> At least here in Australia the below situation would be very unenforceable
Even in Australia those clauses make it into contracts. It might be unenforceable, but that doesn't stop employers from putting it into their contracts, and it might not stop them from trying to enforce it anyway and making your life difficult.
I don't know how many people challenge it, but I've struck it out of several contracts over the years. Each time it's been met with surprise that I might object to it.
I'll agree to more narrowly targeted clauses for IP assignment (limited to work performed on company time and/or with company resources).
But I've also seen things utterly dumb non-compete clauses which would attempt to prevent me from doing any IT work for sometimes years. Also struck. Also likely unenforceable.
Even in Australia those clauses make it into contracts. It might be unenforceable, but that doesn't stop employers from putting it into their contracts, and it might not stop them from trying to enforce it anyway and making your life difficult.
I don't know how many people challenge it, but I've struck it out of several contracts over the years. Each time it's been met with surprise that I might object to it.
I'll agree to more narrowly targeted clauses for IP assignment (limited to work performed on company time and/or with company resources).
But I've also seen things utterly dumb non-compete clauses which would attempt to prevent me from doing any IT work for sometimes years. Also struck. Also likely unenforceable.
> Each time it's been met with surprise that I might object to it.
I’ve never run across a situation where someone wanted to remove a clause from an employment agreement and the company was not utterly shocked that someone would not find the terms acceptable.
I generally think it’s a tactic to get the individual to accept the contract wholesale.
I’ve never run across a situation where someone wanted to remove a clause from an employment agreement and the company was not utterly shocked that someone would not find the terms acceptable.
I generally think it’s a tactic to get the individual to accept the contract wholesale.
If you have signed a contract that states that "all intellectual property you produce during your employment belongs to $COMPANY", it would be a harder argument, I think.
I have had contracts changed to carve out the "on my time, on my kit" exception (and, yes, I am quite antsy having to involve any of my own equipment in anything work-related).
I have had contracts changed to carve out the "on my time, on my kit" exception (and, yes, I am quite antsy having to involve any of my own equipment in anything work-related).
Just because it probably wouldn’t stand up in court doesn’t mean they won’t have to experience years of stress, legal battles, etc. to the point where you just give up.
I guarantee if your GWTW sequel hits a large payday, then that company will have extra incentive to come after you. In the long run it probably won’t work. But they will grief you along the way.
I guarantee if your GWTW sequel hits a large payday, then that company will have extra incentive to come after you. In the long run it probably won’t work. But they will grief you along the way.
> Is the practice of companies owning the rights to software you make on your own time commonplace?!?! I am a student and I really want to go into the field of computer science, however whenever I read stuff like this it is incredibly disheartening.
my buddy who works at Amazon can't do game jams or even mess around with any personal game or web development at all without getting HR to explicitly sign off on it.
my buddy who works at Amazon can't do game jams or even mess around with any personal game or web development at all without getting HR to explicitly sign off on it.
As a general rule, yes.
And it is very possible that the university you are currently at owns some rights to your current work (it's a complex legal topic, but a lot of schools do have a copyright transfer in their rules).
And it is very possible that the university you are currently at owns some rights to your current work (it's a complex legal topic, but a lot of schools do have a copyright transfer in their rules).
Are you sure about the comment about students? I am not aware of the rules in the US but everywhere else I have worked at students (unlike academic employees) own their own IP. In many countries this is actually not just because of school rules, but because of legal rules: the universities can't take something from you without compensating you, but you are paying the university.
That said, rules for graduate or PhD students on a scholarship/stipend are a bid more complex.
That said, rules for graduate or PhD students on a scholarship/stipend are a bid more complex.
It's not copyright transfer, which actually isn't a thing here, but in the Czech Republic, there is actually a specific clause pertaining to work done by a student to fulfil his study obligations (i.e. a bachelor thesis). The school has the right to get a licence to use that work and to demand compensation if the student monetizes it. I haven't heard of it ever being explicitly used, so it's probably uncommon (who wouldn't give their school a licence to use their thesis?).
Don't worry, in most civilized countries such clauses are illegal. In the U.S. some states allow them but many companies either don't have them or don't enforce them.
Remember that in the software engineering industry, the (competent) engineer is the hot commodity. If your employer turns out a bad apple, just leave to a different one. That's what keeps the nonsense in check -- not regulations, but competition for the best employees. For employees this is a great situation to be in. Unlike in other industries.
Remember that in the software engineering industry, the (competent) engineer is the hot commodity. If your employer turns out a bad apple, just leave to a different one. That's what keeps the nonsense in check -- not regulations, but competition for the best employees. For employees this is a great situation to be in. Unlike in other industries.
Off the clock. I can't speak for commonplace, this specific agreement was from 1999 and was probably not enforceable then (but who knows) as I believe no one can reasonably be expected to turn over original creations and impoverish themselves, if there is no connection to the company's area of business. Things vary depending on the year and the country.
You can negotiate your agreements if you see something objectionable in them. (Read them!)
You can negotiate your agreements if you see something objectionable in them. (Read them!)
I work for a company you've heard of, and that's their policy.
_However_, if I had a side project I wanted to work on, I can get clearance to pursue it, so long as it doesn't compete with any of the company's ventures. It's a straightforward process, not a big deal at all.
They're just trying to get ahead of/avoid potential ambiguous IP ownership situations.
_However_, if I had a side project I wanted to work on, I can get clearance to pursue it, so long as it doesn't compete with any of the company's ventures. It's a straightforward process, not a big deal at all.
They're just trying to get ahead of/avoid potential ambiguous IP ownership situations.
> Is the practice of companies owning the rights to software you make on your own time commonplace?!?!
Some of them will try it on, whether its enforceable or not is another matter. Always good to watch out for such clauses and object to them.
Some of them will try it on, whether its enforceable or not is another matter. Always good to watch out for such clauses and object to them.
Even outside the US it is not that unusual for employers to have rights under certain circumstances, and those circumstances quite often center on whether what you do outside of hours strays close enough to what you do at work.
For someone to continue to work on the very same piece of software that they have worked on on the clock and expect their employer to accept they have no rights to it would seem dicey in a lot of jurisdictions without having some explicit agreement in place.
For someone to continue to work on the very same piece of software that they have worked on on the clock and expect their employer to accept they have no rights to it would seem dicey in a lot of jurisdictions without having some explicit agreement in place.
> So, in the IBM context it's possible there is an agreement or code where it says they can work on software projects, but they need to identify themselves as IBM employees at all times.
I thought that too, but the last sentence:
> I grant you a 1 time exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change.
... sounds to me like Pan isn't allowed to work on it in his spare time even using his IBM email address. He made the email-removal change using his IBM email address, so I don't think it can be interpreted as a one-time exception to use his personal email address to do that removal. It sounds like a one-time exception to submit any kind of change at all.
I thought that too, but the last sentence:
> I grant you a 1 time exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change.
... sounds to me like Pan isn't allowed to work on it in his spare time even using his IBM email address. He made the email-removal change using his IBM email address, so I don't think it can be interpreted as a one-time exception to use his personal email address to do that removal. It sounds like a one-time exception to submit any kind of change at all.
This is literally why I quit my last job from Quest / One Identity after a merge. Same fucked up policy that I don't "own" my free time. I don't understand how can people accept this kind of policy.
Yep, agreed. But when you're first starting out you have to make some sacrifices and employers know this.
In IBM's case, they've been burned pretty bad in the past. Gene Amdahl was one of the engineers that designed the IBM 360, the first mainframe. After having a rough go inside IBM's bureaucratic system he left to found the Amdahl Corporation that built hardware compatible mainframe computers. That REALLY pissed IBM off, mainframes are a huge money maker for them and sipping from their own drink was a declaration of war.
I'm not defending their behavior, but IBM really clutches it's pearls. I worked on iSeries hardware (AS/400) among other gear. Even inside IBM and taking IBM classes on the system it was next to impossible to get free-time on OS400 to learn on your own. I got to be friends with the 400 instructors and even then they wouldn't help me learn more than what I was allowed to know about the system. My speculation was they didn't want us field guys getting side work doing stuff for customers that IBM wanted to bill for. Just one of the many reasons I left.
In IBM's case, they've been burned pretty bad in the past. Gene Amdahl was one of the engineers that designed the IBM 360, the first mainframe. After having a rough go inside IBM's bureaucratic system he left to found the Amdahl Corporation that built hardware compatible mainframe computers. That REALLY pissed IBM off, mainframes are a huge money maker for them and sipping from their own drink was a declaration of war.
I'm not defending their behavior, but IBM really clutches it's pearls. I worked on iSeries hardware (AS/400) among other gear. Even inside IBM and taking IBM classes on the system it was next to impossible to get free-time on OS400 to learn on your own. I got to be friends with the 400 instructors and even then they wouldn't help me learn more than what I was allowed to know about the system. My speculation was they didn't want us field guys getting side work doing stuff for customers that IBM wanted to bill for. Just one of the many reasons I left.
There's a switching cost inherent to employment that some people simply can't or won't risk. The only way to give people total freedom to accept or not accept a policy like this is to make it so their fundamental needs are already met.
The ideal outcome here is the person was going to remove their personal email address. The author of that message could achieve it in a few ways:
- Speak to the person like a professional and explain the company policy and give a little context on why things are the way they are
- Take a combative, aggressive tone and demand it be changed
The first builds trust, the second breeds resentment and hurts company image if it leaks (I guess when people resent you they'll take micro aggressive actions to embarrass you by leaking it).
A company where people who take the 2nd path are in a position of power is a toxic workplace with many broken systems in place.
- Speak to the person like a professional and explain the company policy and give a little context on why things are the way they are
- Take a combative, aggressive tone and demand it be changed
The first builds trust, the second breeds resentment and hurts company image if it leaks (I guess when people resent you they'll take micro aggressive actions to embarrass you by leaking it).
A company where people who take the 2nd path are in a position of power is a toxic workplace with many broken systems in place.
I'm interpreting this comment is saying we think this is a "leak" and that it unprofessional to show off internal politics with our bosses.
Your response to a working in a dysfunctional workplace is to go soft and hope for the best? Sure, us white collar workers we think ourselves as so international and sophisticated and professional, but all this shame-driven toxic positivity gets us is a dystopian workplace.
At an old job I had, we got our functional workplace back by being combative against rude dysfunctional rules such as "no hobbies allowed" There was no reason to give in to shame and limit ourselves to peaceful, professional, and toxic positivity if all that would have got us in this situation is workplace dysfunction.
Your response to a working in a dysfunctional workplace is to go soft and hope for the best? Sure, us white collar workers we think ourselves as so international and sophisticated and professional, but all this shame-driven toxic positivity gets us is a dystopian workplace.
At an old job I had, we got our functional workplace back by being combative against rude dysfunctional rules such as "no hobbies allowed" There was no reason to give in to shame and limit ourselves to peaceful, professional, and toxic positivity if all that would have got us in this situation is workplace dysfunction.
> I'm interpreting this comment is saying we think this is a "leak" and that it unprofessional to show off internal politics with our bosses.
Yes, I think including an exchange with your manager in a commit message is a leak, and one way the employee was able to get back at their manager for the draconian response. I don't think it's unprofessional. It's well within their right to write whatever commit message they want to an open source project. No identifiable information was included.
> Your response to a working in a dysfunctional workplace is to go soft and hope for the best? Sure, us white collar workers we think ourselves as so international and sophisticated and professional, but all this shame-driven toxic positivity gets us is a dystopian workplace.
No, my response is when you have people in charge who can't see the cost / benefit of actions and take the one that's emotionally charged (maybe because they were annoyed or had a rough day) but ultimately damaging over one that is more beneficial (to the employee, to the company, to the manager's career), you may be working in a dysfunctional company.
> At an old job I had, we got our functional workplace back by being combative against rude dysfunctional rules such as "no hobbies allowed" There was no reason to give in to shame and limit ourselves to peaceful, professional, and toxic positivity if all that would have got us in this situation is workplace dysfunction.
I don't have an opinion on this. You can be "combative" in a professional way. You challenge process changes with data. Asking questions is not combative, by the way.
Yes, I think including an exchange with your manager in a commit message is a leak, and one way the employee was able to get back at their manager for the draconian response. I don't think it's unprofessional. It's well within their right to write whatever commit message they want to an open source project. No identifiable information was included.
> Your response to a working in a dysfunctional workplace is to go soft and hope for the best? Sure, us white collar workers we think ourselves as so international and sophisticated and professional, but all this shame-driven toxic positivity gets us is a dystopian workplace.
No, my response is when you have people in charge who can't see the cost / benefit of actions and take the one that's emotionally charged (maybe because they were annoyed or had a rough day) but ultimately damaging over one that is more beneficial (to the employee, to the company, to the manager's career), you may be working in a dysfunctional company.
> At an old job I had, we got our functional workplace back by being combative against rude dysfunctional rules such as "no hobbies allowed" There was no reason to give in to shame and limit ourselves to peaceful, professional, and toxic positivity if all that would have got us in this situation is workplace dysfunction.
I don't have an opinion on this. You can be "combative" in a professional way. You challenge process changes with data. Asking questions is not combative, by the way.
Yep, definitely agree with this. Management is always testing out the waters, seeing how much they can push a worker to work. They want more units of productivity out of you for the price they're paying you. But we can fight back to some degree, simply by saying 'no' to things, but we gotta be careful. Saying no too often will land you in the no-promotion bucket when reviews come around, or can get you canned. But politics is politics, and we're all forced into playing it.
Although, when a group of workers decide to band together to fight back, that's a different story, and that's when things get interesting. :D
Although, when a group of workers decide to band together to fight back, that's a different story, and that's when things get interesting. :D
We have no evidence that the first thing wasn't attempted.
Furthermore, from the phrasing of the message (refuting the idea that one can contribute to one's employer's project as a hobby), we have some evidence that there was previous context, unknown to us.
We also have evidence that the employee in question was previously contributing on behalf of their employer, and for some reason, recently stopped: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net.g...
Furthermore, from the phrasing of the message (refuting the idea that one can contribute to one's employer's project as a hobby), we have some evidence that there was previous context, unknown to us.
We also have evidence that the employee in question was previously contributing on behalf of their employer, and for some reason, recently stopped: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net.g...
Yep. Certainly never wanted to work for IBM but this gives me a great case to never explore it.
totally agree. I would not respond well to this kind of treatment. You pay me. You don’t own me.
The way I'm interpreting this, it's not _because_ they used a personal address, but rather that they weren't allowed to contribute to VNIC [for contractual reasons], and using a personal email address does not magically bypass that restriction.
(The current title is "IBM employee forced to stop kernel work for using personal email address", which is an interpretation likely missing context)
(The current title is "IBM employee forced to stop kernel work for using personal email address", which is an interpretation likely missing context)
To quote the quote given in the commit:
"As an IBM employee, you are not allowed to use your gmail account to work in any way on VNIC. You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby". You are an IBM employee 100% of the time. Please remove yourself completely from the maintainers file. I grant you a 1 time exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change."
Your interpretation is not obvious to me at all. To me that reads that the person was using is private address to work on the kernel as a hobby and IBM objected because he is considered to 100% at IBM. My interpretation of this is of the typical corporate overreach were they claim everything you do is theirs.
Your interpretation is not obvious to me at all. To me that reads that the person was using is private address to work on the kernel as a hobby and IBM objected because he is considered to 100% at IBM. My interpretation of this is of the typical corporate overreach were they claim everything you do is theirs.
To me the worst part is the `100% of the time` interpretation.. Seriously I thought my employment agreement mentioned only 40 hrs a week??.. Unless it has explicit clauses to mention to contributing to VNIC without IBM ID, this is just some one interpreting legal rule for their convenience or what they wanto make a stand of.
While working for the previous employer (multinational corporation), my contract had a clause that any work/personal projects that I do outside work must be approved, in writing. Doesn't matter if I only work on them outside working hours. Their justification was that the rest of the time is for me to rest/ I was employed full-time, so they were not comfortable with me e.g. working a second job & being tired at work.
It does sound like a bit of an overreach, and I'm not sure how enforceable their contract really was, but the language was unambiguous and unsanctioned contributions to open source projects were definitely out of the question.
(I'm currently working at a startup, they don't have this problem/ contributions to OSS are encouraged, I just have too much work to do already :D )
It does sound like a bit of an overreach, and I'm not sure how enforceable their contract really was, but the language was unambiguous and unsanctioned contributions to open source projects were definitely out of the question.
(I'm currently working at a startup, they don't have this problem/ contributions to OSS are encouraged, I just have too much work to do already :D )
> any work/personal projects that I do outside work must be approved, in writing. Doesn't matter if I only work on them outside working hours
F that, no way in hell I'd sign that contract, for any amount of money.
It's legalese for "you are just a cog in the machine and there is no 'you'. Sign here please".
F that, no way in hell I'd sign that contract, for any amount of money.
It's legalese for "you are just a cog in the machine and there is no 'you'. Sign here please".
I get the feeling, just want to say that it all worked out well (towards "spectacularly well") for me. It's easy to say "for any amount of money" in the abstract, but that job directly and indirectly took me from "relatively poor" to "fatfire-level-of-rich". And didn't _really_ restrict me in any way - I got the written approvals to teach when needed, and contributing to OSS was possible (though there was some red tape).
I'm by no mean advocating that one should ignore the contracts, but I do think you need to look at the larger picture... sometimes it just is overzealous lawyers and not necessarily a bad company to work for.
I'm by no mean advocating that one should ignore the contracts, but I do think you need to look at the larger picture... sometimes it just is overzealous lawyers and not necessarily a bad company to work for.
Completely agree with you. More power to you!
You just need to know when to quit
You just need to know when to quit
There's usually pretty incredible benefits in signing away your soul to the Devil. Happy that it worked out for you in the end.
You went pretty fast from "you are just a cog in the machine and there is no 'you'. Sign here please" to "signing away your soul to the Devil".
I understand the first statement/feeling, and my reply was meant to say that it might be ok to take the risk that "you are just a cog in the machine". As for the latter statement, not sure where you got that one from, there was nothing in the contract that suggested it (and there was nothing evil in the job that I was originally hired for, either - it was code intelligence (code hinting) for PHP).
I understand the first statement/feeling, and my reply was meant to say that it might be ok to take the risk that "you are just a cog in the machine". As for the latter statement, not sure where you got that one from, there was nothing in the contract that suggested it (and there was nothing evil in the job that I was originally hired for, either - it was code intelligence (code hinting) for PHP).
My bad, it was a sorry attempt at being witty. I didn't mean any disrespect to your choice.
Personally, at that point I would start demanding 24/7 pay coverage. You don't get to tell me what I can or cannot do outside of the hours that you're paying for.
Worked for an MSP that basically required 24/7 availability but wouldn't pay for it. They got around it by saying things like your ringer must be at 100% volume at all times, you must be working within 30 minutes of receiving the call, and then you must clock out the minute you stop working. They'd want you to wake up at 2:03 AM, work on something for 5 minutes, and clock out at 2:08 AM. The way the rules you were wrote, you could get in trouble for just about everything except not answering the phone entirely. So guess what I started doing?
This is sometimes covered in contracts by some legalese in the vein of "we pay you more than we ought to, so we also expect you to ...".
So the big companies have a cartel to suppress their workers' salaries, and then they write "we pay you more than we ought to" into their contracts.
They probably believe people should feel honored to work for them for free, but paying you less than fair market salary and taking away all your hobbies is the most they can get.
They probably believe people should feel honored to work for them for free, but paying you less than fair market salary and taking away all your hobbies is the most they can get.
You are right. Such demands are written in a contract. You either sign or not.
In all honesty, this should not even be possible to require in a contract (and I'm fairly sure that it indeed isn't, in most EU countries), considering that employment contracts are negotiated from a position of power imbalance.
I'm in the EU; I mentioned that I don't think the verbiage was really enforceable, but that can't stop them from putting it in. Fortunately it never came to be tested in a court of law :)
Power imbalance is wildly dependant on a lot of factors and it's already reflected in the contract clauses and compensation. I personally wouldn't care about that clause and I'd happily work for them (provided my requirements were met - and, to be fair, a company coming up with this clauses probably wouldn't).
This is usually a problem for lower paid jobs, not for developers.
Hiring a good developer is hard, hiring a good cleaner is simple.
This is usually a problem for lower paid jobs, not for developers.
Hiring a good developer is hard, hiring a good cleaner is simple.
Law and application seem to differ/lag somewhat. Each influences the other. It’s worth being aware that neither fully determines the other, and that each evolves in parallel. We live in an organic world where things are not as well defined and predictable as the typical programmer might wish. To thrive, one must dirty oneself in the actual code, rather than get bogged down in the terminology of the man page.
> my contract had a clause that any work/personal projects that I do outside work must be approved
I might be wrong but I don't think this kind of thing would work (legally speaking) in the EU.
I might be wrong but I don't think this kind of thing would work (legally speaking) in the EU.
"The general rule – IP ownership
The general position under English law is that IP rights created by an employee within the course of employment automatically belong to the employer; where there is any doubt as to whether an employee or their employer owns IP rights, the relevant legislation largely favours employers."
It's been that way for decades, while the UK was in EU.
I had to get it written into an employment contract that Open Source activity outside of work was my own.
The general position under English law is that IP rights created by an employee within the course of employment automatically belong to the employer; where there is any doubt as to whether an employee or their employer owns IP rights, the relevant legislation largely favours employers."
It's been that way for decades, while the UK was in EU.
I had to get it written into an employment contract that Open Source activity outside of work was my own.
I mean, fair enough if the contract mentions working in your free time to use / contribute to the IP of the company you work for (or that of the competitor), but I was more referring to working on hobby projects not relating to your work.
The situation isn't any different in NL either. Although there is no blanket your-company-owns-your-**s policy (your IPs), the general rule is: if you create something in your spare time that your employer could well have paid you for (i.e. it's in line with your job description), the IP belongs to your employer.
The idea behind this is that your employer pays not just for your time, but also for the skills you acquire during your work. Therefore, the output of those skills has at least partial ownership. There's a huge gray area which contains liabilities and opportunities for both sides, which is why most companies insist on signing off on personal projects. The alternative is fighting it out in front of a judge, should it ever come to that.
The idea behind this is that your employer pays not just for your time, but also for the skills you acquire during your work. Therefore, the output of those skills has at least partial ownership. There's a huge gray area which contains liabilities and opportunities for both sides, which is why most companies insist on signing off on personal projects. The alternative is fighting it out in front of a judge, should it ever come to that.
It certainly was a thing working for Telefónica in Germany. We needed to get separate permission to be allowed to do work/volunteering outside of the main role, which was conditional on you being able to complete the main task.
I heard a story of someone who had this permission revoked because they worked weekends as a DJ in Berlin, and would often take sick days/turn up late on Mondays to deal with the hangover.
I heard a story of someone who had this permission revoked because they worked weekends as a DJ in Berlin, and would often take sick days/turn up late on Mondays to deal with the hangover.
Yes, this is normal in Germany. The idea is that you're legally only allowed to work 40-ish hours per week and your employer is legally required to ensure that you observe break times and at least 24 hours of rest on the weekend. In turn you are usually required to get signoff if you want to do another job on the side, though I think volunteer work is generally allowed. I have no idea how this works for part-time jobs and why your employer can allow you to take a second job if doing so will violate the legally mandated recovery periods.
I definitely was required to get written approval in multiple companies I worked at in Germany.
Also it is legally enforceable as in it can be considered a valid and completely legal exception to usual termination protection.
Also it is legally enforceable as in it can be considered a valid and completely legal exception to usual termination protection.
It should be legal. I dont see the problem with having terms like this. There are plenty of other companies to choose from if you are a developer. From a company perspective it makes 100% sense to have terms that restricts when a developer is allowed to work on a project.
It should not be legal. You exchange your time to produce money for the company, and that's it. You should be able to do whatever you want out of the company hours, and I don't see how that can be a problem. It makes 100% sense from a worker perspective to not have your company have complete control of you. There are plenty of other workers to choose from if you are a company, in case you are dissatisfied with an employee.
> It should be legal.
It should be if consideration is provided.
I do think there's an argument to be made whether the base salary counts as consideration for things outside of the defined working hours though.
It should be if consideration is provided.
I do think there's an argument to be made whether the base salary counts as consideration for things outside of the defined working hours though.
I think the argument is that you gain some specialized knowledge at work, so they want to prevent you from working on a competing product using that knowledge, personal, OSS or otherwise. At some point a lawyer probably reduced the sentence to simply require approval in writing for anything to avoid any expensive disputes.
No, they had that one too, it's the non-compete clause basically (it extends a few years after your employment terminates, if I'm not wrong). Again, not sure it's enforceable, I'm not aware of them ever trying to. Probably they might if you were in a leadership position and tried to outright move to a direct competitor? But I never heard of it used for a "regular" employee so I basically ignored its existence.
When I was an intern at IBM the contract basically said they owned everything you produce, whether you do it in the office or not. They seemed to take that quite seriously.
I think it’s an IP thing, they view it as their IP the employee is contributing so it should be in their name.
This was ~20 years ago but it seems not much has changed.
I think it’s an IP thing, they view it as their IP the employee is contributing so it should be in their name.
This was ~20 years ago but it seems not much has changed.
The reason why they do this is because you could pretend your are working for them but actually do something else on the side during the time they are paying you. The only way to avoid is is by completely banning other work. It really makes sense from their side
You could, and then you either are still able to deliver an amount of work that makes them happy, in which case, why do they care - or you can't deliver an acceptable amount of work and they can fire you for performance. No need to own 100% of anyone's time.
The third option is that you do something really cool that contractually they own. Be very careful with side projects under these types of contracts.
This makes zero sense, and sounds more corporate slave-ownership.
If you are going to pay the going hourly rate for 168 hours a week, yeah maybe there's something.
But if you only pay for 40 hours a week, that's what you get: not a single minute outside of that. And especially not something the person did or invented at home.
If you are going to pay the going hourly rate for 168 hours a week, yeah maybe there's something.
But if you only pay for 40 hours a week, that's what you get: not a single minute outside of that. And especially not something the person did or invented at home.
It's pretty common in the industry to have these type of IP clauses. I get the impression most people don't read their contract.
> I get the impression most people don't read their contract.
We read them, one of two situations occurs:
1. We don't care and sign it.
2. We raise a stink about it and either they change it or we don't take the job.
My current employer had the clause because it was standard boilerplate contract, but when I expressed my concerns over it and told them I wouldn't sign with it, they amended the contract to make sure nothing in it would impede my own projects and company.
Now on my 1-on-1 my CEO often asks me how my side business is doing and gives me advice as needed about building a business.
We read them, one of two situations occurs:
1. We don't care and sign it.
2. We raise a stink about it and either they change it or we don't take the job.
My current employer had the clause because it was standard boilerplate contract, but when I expressed my concerns over it and told them I wouldn't sign with it, they amended the contract to make sure nothing in it would impede my own projects and company.
Now on my 1-on-1 my CEO often asks me how my side business is doing and gives me advice as needed about building a business.
Boy do I need a job at your company.. :-P
Did you not read what I wrote? I said you could work during company time and that is why they do it. It's not just that. You can realistically only work a few hours a day properly so if you spend all your thinking power on hobbies there is little left for the guy who pays you
You might be an hourly employee or a contractor. Most don't.
Your "employee handbook" likely mentions not causing damage to the company brand or taking any action detrimental to the company even in your personal time.
Your "employee handbook" likely mentions not causing damage to the company brand or taking any action detrimental to the company even in your personal time.
Should be easy enough to fix with a statement along the lines of "this code is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by my employer".
I had a job offer from an IBM company once. The offer negotiation part happened directly with IBM. The salary went to hell because I live in Canada, and although the position was fully remote, they took away the juicy US salary and offered me a sucky Canadian one. The main reason I work remote is to not get stuck with a Canadian salary. In addition they stated that everything I do at any time is owned by them. I had a side project, so I applied for an exemption. It went through legal for a couple weeks. It was denied.
I turned the job down. The whole process wasted tons of my time and theirs and could have been avoided if they had just been upfront about their policies instead of writing useless crap about how great their culture is in the job ad.
I turned the job down. The whole process wasted tons of my time and theirs and could have been avoided if they had just been upfront about their policies instead of writing useless crap about how great their culture is in the job ad.
Not surprised. IBM is a shitty workplace. I am still kind of sad that they acquired Red Hat ~2 years ago.
You and the person you responded to interpreted it exactly the same way, I think.
This IBM employee isn't allowed to contribute to VNIC. Why? I dunno. But the problem isn't if a personal address is used or not, but rather this specific IBM employee can't contribute to VNIC.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the fairness of that, but rather that the OP was saying "it wouldn't have been any better if they had used their IBM address."
To your last point... I doubt that's what's happening here. I don't think IBM wants ownership, but rather is protecting themselves from any sort of litigation or undermining an agreement.
This IBM employee isn't allowed to contribute to VNIC. Why? I dunno. But the problem isn't if a personal address is used or not, but rather this specific IBM employee can't contribute to VNIC.
I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with the fairness of that, but rather that the OP was saying "it wouldn't have been any better if they had used their IBM address."
To your last point... I doubt that's what's happening here. I don't think IBM wants ownership, but rather is protecting themselves from any sort of litigation or undermining an agreement.
That's how I read the text initially - but the diff still notes multiple @linux.ibm.com email addresses as maintainers.
You're correct, I actually misread the original poster (or he/she edited their post?).
Anyway, after reading a bit more through the thread, I did not realise that VNIC is a IBM driver. It seems like the real situation is a bit more complex.
I would say though, the "You are an IBM employee 100% of the time" is really bad management IMO.
Anyway, after reading a bit more through the thread, I did not realise that VNIC is a IBM driver. It seems like the real situation is a bit more complex.
I would say though, the "You are an IBM employee 100% of the time" is really bad management IMO.
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You are an IBM employee 100% of the time
I hope their pay reflects that and is 3x the average.
I hope their pay reflects that and is 3x the average.
It's not, I interviewed with them and had an offer. Although it was for a completely different team probably.
If you signed an employment contract with a company, you are employed by them until the time either of you terminates it. Whether you are actively doing work for them at the moment is irrelevant to that.
Either side can stipulate anything they want in that contract, other than what is disallowed by contract and labor laws (and of course your rights). You can, at any time, decide to terminate that contract yourself though (usually?).
IBM probably doesn't want what they might consider proprietary code leaking out, and they probably don't want to have to vet every employee contribution considered "personal" to external projects, so their solution is simple, don't allow employees to do so.
The solution for employees is equally as simple. Don't work for companies that go this route if you care about that. The market will sort it out (and has, to a large degree. Many companies specifically don't care about this).
Either side can stipulate anything they want in that contract, other than what is disallowed by contract and labor laws (and of course your rights). You can, at any time, decide to terminate that contract yourself though (usually?).
IBM probably doesn't want what they might consider proprietary code leaking out, and they probably don't want to have to vet every employee contribution considered "personal" to external projects, so their solution is simple, don't allow employees to do so.
The solution for employees is equally as simple. Don't work for companies that go this route if you care about that. The market will sort it out (and has, to a large degree. Many companies specifically don't care about this).
I for one would prefer to have a society where certain things can't be signed over by contract. Like your free time. Or your organs or life.
Signing away your free time is literally what work is. Bit even if we take that you mean the rest of your free time, how do you enforce that without making a hash of it? Am I allowed to work for my company's biggest competitor in my free time? What if I donate that time?
I agree some things should be private, but if I'm paid to program, it makes sense in some instances to say I can't sell or give away that skill they are paying for. Enforcing the details is hard, which is also why I don't want the government doing a shit job of it, and the market can sort that out. Let the government define my rights (which is much more encompassing and harder to circumvent anyway), and the market define the details. If I don't like what is being offered, I'll go elsewhere.
I agree some things should be private, but if I'm paid to program, it makes sense in some instances to say I can't sell or give away that skill they are paying for. Enforcing the details is hard, which is also why I don't want the government doing a shit job of it, and the market can sort that out. Let the government define my rights (which is much more encompassing and harder to circumvent anyway), and the market define the details. If I don't like what is being offered, I'll go elsewhere.
Sure. Signing away your free time to make it work is fine. Signing away your free time into some limbo where it's still legally your free time, but your employer claims it's not yours, is not.
When free time becomes work, that should also entail a lot of responsibilities on the part of the one paying for the work (such as, for example, paying).
Re the market solving it: maybe it does solve it for you and me. The skillset we're likely to have just based on the fact that we're hanging out on HN means we have a lot of relative power. I for one want a society where also the less fortunate (=a looooot of people), and the far less fortunate, can live worthy lives.
When free time becomes work, that should also entail a lot of responsibilities on the part of the one paying for the work (such as, for example, paying).
Re the market solving it: maybe it does solve it for you and me. The skillset we're likely to have just based on the fact that we're hanging out on HN means we have a lot of relative power. I for one want a society where also the less fortunate (=a looooot of people), and the far less fortunate, can live worthy lives.
It is your free time, and you can do whatever you want for yourself. The problem is when you market it to someone else, whether for money or donated, if you agreed to such restrictions. Then that free time is work, whether you enjoy it or get paid for it, which is why the employer in this case thought they had a right to restrict it.
I too wish there was a sane way to deal with this, but I don't think this is a case that's so simple that that you can pass a law that isn't so narrow as to be useless that also isn't so vague that it takes a hatchet to important legitimate concerns for employers in a way that would be bad overall. Passing a law about rights of a person would be a sane first step, but how do you do that while also protecting IP and trade secrets, etc? That's why I recommend to get mark we t, not because the market gets everything right, but because I'm this case I think it's better than a law that I not only think won't be done well in the end, I'm not even sure it could be done well. And to be clear, many states already have laws that curtail the worst excesses of contracts like these (such as limiting what type of work qualifies based on what you are employed for), and I think expanding those that work to help this to other states is a good thing, as well as small targeted additions. I just don't think it's something we can use legislation alone to fix.
I too wish there was a sane way to deal with this, but I don't think this is a case that's so simple that that you can pass a law that isn't so narrow as to be useless that also isn't so vague that it takes a hatchet to important legitimate concerns for employers in a way that would be bad overall. Passing a law about rights of a person would be a sane first step, but how do you do that while also protecting IP and trade secrets, etc? That's why I recommend to get mark we t, not because the market gets everything right, but because I'm this case I think it's better than a law that I not only think won't be done well in the end, I'm not even sure it could be done well. And to be clear, many states already have laws that curtail the worst excesses of contracts like these (such as limiting what type of work qualifies based on what you are employed for), and I think expanding those that work to help this to other states is a good thing, as well as small targeted additions. I just don't think it's something we can use legislation alone to fix.
> Passing a law about rights of a person would be a sane first step, but how do you do that while also protecting IP and trade secrets, etc?
We already have laws for these things. If you steal IP your employer already has recourse, so why do they need to control your non work time in addition to the legal avenues already at their disposal?
We already have laws for these things. If you steal IP your employer already has recourse, so why do they need to control your non work time in addition to the legal avenues already at their disposal?
> We already have laws for these things.
We handle those through contract law to some extent. Any law passed to prevent employer overreach would presumably be neutering contract law in some manner. I'm not sure there won't be unintended consequences we'll have to deal with for a long time.
> why do they need to control your non work time in addition to the legal avenues already at their disposal?
They aren't controlling your non-work time, they're controlling your non-work output. You can use that work, they just don't want you selling or giving it away, as they view that as competing with what you've contracted to provide them exclusively (because you signed an exclusive contract).
We handle those through contract law to some extent. Any law passed to prevent employer overreach would presumably be neutering contract law in some manner. I'm not sure there won't be unintended consequences we'll have to deal with for a long time.
> why do they need to control your non work time in addition to the legal avenues already at their disposal?
They aren't controlling your non-work time, they're controlling your non-work output. You can use that work, they just don't want you selling or giving it away, as they view that as competing with what you've contracted to provide them exclusively (because you signed an exclusive contract).
Glad there are still some sanity on HN.
Pretty sure there are limits to work conditions, you can't sign away everything.
> Either side can stipulate anything they want in that contract, other than what is disallowed by contract and labor laws (and of course your rights).
Guess what this is disallowed by!
You can write "oh yeah by the way we're not going to pay you for ~75% of your working hours because we're cheap bastards" in the contract all you want, that doesn't make it legal. If they want you to work for them 168 hours a week, they need to pay for it.
Guess what this is disallowed by!
You can write "oh yeah by the way we're not going to pay you for ~75% of your working hours because we're cheap bastards" in the contract all you want, that doesn't make it legal. If they want you to work for them 168 hours a week, they need to pay for it.
That's not what they said, and that's not what I said. They didn't say the personon the clock doing a task for them of the time, they said the person was employed by them of the time. They were. You are employed right now by whoever signs your paychecks (assuming you have an employer). Employment is a contract, not a state you go into and out of on an hourly basis day by day. You may start work and stop work at different times on different days, but you are employed that entire period (this is also why you can't collect unemployment just because you haven't worked because you haven't been scheduled over a weekend).
People have been primed to assume some things about the statement presented (as with the root comment), but if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds. Employers often put things in contracts that we take as obvious and most would agree should be allowed. At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed. Whether they are disallowed from offering their services to a competing company, or an open source project, IBM does not want them plying their skills elsewhere while they've contracted to ply them with IBM, and presumably as put that into the contract. Whether it's for an open source project or not is irrelevant, if that's what they agreed to in the contract (let's not act like an open source project can't provide competition, whether or not this one was).
I've outlined my thoughts on this in detail other places in this thread. I don't agree with contracts like this, and would attempt to not sign one if it was possible (but maybe if I was paid enough, it would be worthwhile). But I do think this is a case very easily handled by contract law, and better handled by it than some ham-fisted legislation that is easy to work around and has unintended consequences.
People have been primed to assume some things about the statement presented (as with the root comment), but if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds. Employers often put things in contracts that we take as obvious and most would agree should be allowed. At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed. Whether they are disallowed from offering their services to a competing company, or an open source project, IBM does not want them plying their skills elsewhere while they've contracted to ply them with IBM, and presumably as put that into the contract. Whether it's for an open source project or not is irrelevant, if that's what they agreed to in the contract (let's not act like an open source project can't provide competition, whether or not this one was).
I've outlined my thoughts on this in detail other places in this thread. I don't agree with contracts like this, and would attempt to not sign one if it was possible (but maybe if I was paid enough, it would be worthwhile). But I do think this is a case very easily handled by contract law, and better handled by it than some ham-fisted legislation that is easy to work around and has unintended consequences.
> this is also why you can't collect unemployment just because you haven't worked because you haven't been scheduled over a weekend
Presumably this works differently in your country, but I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week, regardless of whether or not I had an active employment contract.
> if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds
It is exactly as ludicrous as it sounds. A company pays you to do 8 hours of work. You go there and do the 8 hours of work that they paid you to do. You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it.
This is not acceptable behaviour.
> At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed.
Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM. It's also important to note that non-compete agreements are only enforceable if there's demonstrable harm to the business that employs you, or you're taking intellectual property from said business to use yourself. IBM very clearly has no intention to respect those limitations, so they can get bent.
I don't understand how anyone could possibly read the sentence 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay. No matter how much nuance or context you want to add, any company policy that results in someone typing those words is a gross overreach.
Presumably this works differently in your country, but I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week, regardless of whether or not I had an active employment contract.
> if you really examine it critically and rationally, you'll see it's not nearly as ludicrous as it sounds
It is exactly as ludicrous as it sounds. A company pays you to do 8 hours of work. You go there and do the 8 hours of work that they paid you to do. You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it.
This is not acceptable behaviour.
> At it's simplest level this is a non-compete agreement while that person is employed.
Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM. It's also important to note that non-compete agreements are only enforceable if there's demonstrable harm to the business that employs you, or you're taking intellectual property from said business to use yourself. IBM very clearly has no intention to respect those limitations, so they can get bent.
I don't understand how anyone could possibly read the sentence 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay. No matter how much nuance or context you want to add, any company policy that results in someone typing those words is a gross overreach.
> I could 100% collect unemployment benefits were I to work less than 25 hours in any given week
That has nothing to do with that I said.
> You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it.
If you agreed not to do something in a contract, you shouldn't do it. There are obviously ways overreaches that should be protected from, but if someone comes to you and says here's a contract for $10,000, all you have to do is agree not to write any code for any companies or submit any code to open source projects and you sign that, should you be able to ignore that contract? If so, should you have to give the money back? In what way is this different than if it's an additional stipulation on your employment contract?
> Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM.
Non-compete agreements for after your employment has ended are scummy. I see no problem with a company making your employment conditional on you not also working for a competitor at the same time, as long as that is clearly outlined up front.
> 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay.
Because, contextually, what they are saying and is being left out is along the lines of "you agreed not to do this when we employed you. Stop doing this. It doesn't matter whether you use a work email or personal email to do this thing you agreed not to do, as long as you are employed by us. Stop now. If you don't stop, we'll fire you, and then you can do it all you want, but we won't be giving you the paycheck we agreed to, because part of that agreement was you would not do what you're doing now, because then you won't be employed by us."
I think that's an okay thing to request if the employee agreed to that stipulation in advance. I would try not to agree with anything like that, but if they offered enough money, I might. I don't think there's some fundamental right of mine to contribute to an open source project that should be prevented from being negotiated in a contract.
You either believe that someone should be able to offer you some amount of money for you to agree to behave a certain way by not doing some things, or you don't. If you think that shouldn't be allowed, then you disagree with a huge chunk of contract law. If you propose we change contract law at such a fundamental level, I suggest you also provide for how you don't collapse the economy at the same time.
That has nothing to do with that I said.
> You then go home and do something else in your free time, and they phone you up and tell you to stop doing that because they don't like it.
If you agreed not to do something in a contract, you shouldn't do it. There are obviously ways overreaches that should be protected from, but if someone comes to you and says here's a contract for $10,000, all you have to do is agree not to write any code for any companies or submit any code to open source projects and you sign that, should you be able to ignore that contract? If so, should you have to give the money back? In what way is this different than if it's an additional stipulation on your employment contract?
> Despite being legal, non-compete agreements are equally scummy, and I'm not sure why you think that this comparison is favourable to IBM.
Non-compete agreements for after your employment has ended are scummy. I see no problem with a company making your employment conditional on you not also working for a competitor at the same time, as long as that is clearly outlined up front.
> 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' and think that it sounds okay.
Because, contextually, what they are saying and is being left out is along the lines of "you agreed not to do this when we employed you. Stop doing this. It doesn't matter whether you use a work email or personal email to do this thing you agreed not to do, as long as you are employed by us. Stop now. If you don't stop, we'll fire you, and then you can do it all you want, but we won't be giving you the paycheck we agreed to, because part of that agreement was you would not do what you're doing now, because then you won't be employed by us."
I think that's an okay thing to request if the employee agreed to that stipulation in advance. I would try not to agree with anything like that, but if they offered enough money, I might. I don't think there's some fundamental right of mine to contribute to an open source project that should be prevented from being negotiated in a contract.
You either believe that someone should be able to offer you some amount of money for you to agree to behave a certain way by not doing some things, or you don't. If you think that shouldn't be allowed, then you disagree with a huge chunk of contract law. If you propose we change contract law at such a fundamental level, I suggest you also provide for how you don't collapse the economy at the same time.
> should you be able to ignore that contract?
If the clause is illegal, yeah. In almost every jurisdiction on the planet, a contract containing a clause that is illegal renders that clause invalid, and the rest of the contract stands. So why would I not collect my free $10,000 and continue doing whatever I wanted in my free time? Sucks for the company offering that contract, but maybe they should avoid trying to break the law next time my contract is up for negotiation.
> If you think that shouldn't be allowed, then you disagree with a huge chunk of contract law.
Correct. Fortunately I also agree with some parts of contract law. Specifically the parts that would make 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' an illegal thing to actually enforce.
If the clause is illegal, yeah. In almost every jurisdiction on the planet, a contract containing a clause that is illegal renders that clause invalid, and the rest of the contract stands. So why would I not collect my free $10,000 and continue doing whatever I wanted in my free time? Sucks for the company offering that contract, but maybe they should avoid trying to break the law next time my contract is up for negotiation.
> If you think that shouldn't be allowed, then you disagree with a huge chunk of contract law.
Correct. Fortunately I also agree with some parts of contract law. Specifically the parts that would make 'You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a "hobby".' an illegal thing to actually enforce.
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All intellectual property I create is owned by my employer, per terms of employment. My employer doesn't care about my musical performances, since no one else would, either ;-) North Carolina is friendlier to employers than California in thus regard.
[deleted]
As I interpret it, it's not even that. The instruction is to remove his personal email from the MAINTAINERS file, not to halt work on the project. Now, maybe that was said offline, we certainly have no evidence. But the most obvious interpretation is that Lijun Pan was employed by IBM to work on the Linux kernel driver for this piece of IBM hardware, and IBM (unsurprisingly) wants all contributions credited to them and not to individuals. Most employers would have similar rules if you ask them. Certainly mine wouldn't want me using my personal address for stuff they paid me to do.
Is the way this was done maybe a bit hidebound, corporate and uncharitable? Yeah. It's IBM, duh. But absent other evidence it doesn't seem like this devleoper is being pulled off a project for using a personal email.
Is the way this was done maybe a bit hidebound, corporate and uncharitable? Yeah. It's IBM, duh. But absent other evidence it doesn't seem like this devleoper is being pulled off a project for using a personal email.
For a little additional context, a few days ago, Pan removed himself (using his IBM email address) from the maintainers list in the same file and added himself (using the gmail address) to the reviewers list. The linked commit removes Pan entirely.
There’s more going on here than is visible from the out-of-context quote in the commit message.
There’s more going on here than is visible from the out-of-context quote in the commit message.
If I am reading this correctly he wanted to continue work on this as a hobby. But IBM didn't want him to as he represents IBM.
Completely agree. There is a huge iceberg hidden underneath this single commit message and all we are doing here is speculate how it looks like.
And it's also pretty certain that posting this message into the eternal commit history can easily be interpreted as trying to make IBM look bad, which tends to not sit well with any employer.
And it's also pretty certain that posting this message into the eternal commit history can easily be interpreted as trying to make IBM look bad, which tends to not sit well with any employer.
Since there are other IBM employees listed in the same file it sounds like the issue is with this specific employee?
Can the community disapprove the pull request and show it to IBM that they don't control the kernel?
It would be a little nonsensical for the community to say that IBM does not control the "IBM Power SRIOV Virtual NIC Device Driver," which is located in the drivers/net/ethernet/ibm directory, and which according to this very same MAINTAINERS file is maintained by three other IBM employees.
That is a fair point to make, and indeed if you look at the commits for other very vendor specific open source network interfaces (like Intel's 10Gbps and 100Gbps NICs), the manufacturer has a very close relationship to publishing drivers for this sort of stuff.
Go as far back as the year 2004 and Intel's first generation of PCI-X (not PCI-E!) very expensive 10Gbps NICs for servers, and their FreeBSD drivers. Look at the man pages for them and the @intel.com email addresses who wrote the drivers and the man page.
In the case of something like an ethernet card the only persons who might have the appropriate knowledge to write a stable kernel driver probably are the same ones who designed it.
Go as far back as the year 2004 and Intel's first generation of PCI-X (not PCI-E!) very expensive 10Gbps NICs for servers, and their FreeBSD drivers. Look at the man pages for them and the @intel.com email addresses who wrote the drivers and the man page.
In the case of something like an ethernet card the only persons who might have the appropriate knowledge to write a stable kernel driver probably are the same ones who designed it.
> only persons who might have the appropriate knowledge
Sometimes though the community doesn't want just the knowledge of the corporation, we want it plus more.
We don't want DVD region restrictions. We don't want GPUs artificially restricted from mining Ethereum. These are the kind of things where an open source person can give a pull request to the repo to include an awesome feature that enables the hardware to do more than it is advertised to do and shove it to their corporate ass. That's the spirit of Linux.
If someone was able to make the IBM hardware do something that it was artificially restricted from doing, they should be able to issue a pull request to the repo and get it committed.
Sometimes though the community doesn't want just the knowledge of the corporation, we want it plus more.
We don't want DVD region restrictions. We don't want GPUs artificially restricted from mining Ethereum. These are the kind of things where an open source person can give a pull request to the repo to include an awesome feature that enables the hardware to do more than it is advertised to do and shove it to their corporate ass. That's the spirit of Linux.
If someone was able to make the IBM hardware do something that it was artificially restricted from doing, they should be able to issue a pull request to the repo and get it committed.
> We don't want GPUs artificially restricted from mining Ethereum.
Oh let's not make sweeping statements haha, I want to play video games much more than I want the ice caps to melt so some ancaps can play multiplayer excel. I'm not usually onboard with vendor restrictions like these, but if the card self-destructed Inspector Gadget style when it detected crypto mining, I'd be okay with that.
And I say that as someone who has turned off their in-wall space heater and replaced it with a 3090 mining ETH when idle. No e-waste, no wasted power, (in this case) just a heater that pays you back.
Oh let's not make sweeping statements haha, I want to play video games much more than I want the ice caps to melt so some ancaps can play multiplayer excel. I'm not usually onboard with vendor restrictions like these, but if the card self-destructed Inspector Gadget style when it detected crypto mining, I'd be okay with that.
And I say that as someone who has turned off their in-wall space heater and replaced it with a 3090 mining ETH when idle. No e-waste, no wasted power, (in this case) just a heater that pays you back.
> much more than I want the ice caps to melt so some ancaps can play multiplayer excel.
brings to mind something I saw recently: "What is bitcoin? Well, it's like if you left your car idling 24x7 it would produce solved sudokus you can trade for black tar heroin"
brings to mind something I saw recently: "What is bitcoin? Well, it's like if you left your car idling 24x7 it would produce solved sudokus you can trade for black tar heroin"
> no wasted power
Electric heating can be much more efficient than what's effectively resistive heating with 500%+ efficiencies being possible.
Search for "heat pumps" or watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
Electric heating can be much more efficient than what's effectively resistive heating with 500%+ efficiencies being possible.
Search for "heat pumps" or watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7J52mDjZzto
Someone else mentioned heat pumps to me in this context too, I'm unfortunately really limited in what I can use in my apartment. It's a condo complex made of brick put up in 1906 - without heating or air conditioning. I'm not in a position to install external hardware. My parents have a heat pump set-up in their house though!
Watched the video by the way, thanks!
Watched the video by the way, thanks!
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I absolutely agree - in the case of Intel, they've been relatively benevolent and open about publishing the full details of drivers for their NICs, because they have a market demand to sell more NICs.
If there were some hidden feature that was not enabled on an Intel 100Gbps NIC, which could be enabled in an open source driver, I'm 100% in favor of doing that. Thankfully there isn't (all praise to our benevolent corporate overlords), but I can certainly see a scenario with another vendor where there might be.
I hope that if Intel were to ever go down the route of big ugly closed source binary blob to make a 100Gbps NIC function properly, that people would go buy hardware from another vendor. With some basic consumer grade 1Gbps ethernet stuff you can see this now on a base debian install, where you need to enable the 'non-free' repo and install a .deb for a Broadcom provided driver to make a NIC work. Because their driver is considerably less freely licensed than Intel's. One of the reasons why I try to steer away from any Broadcom network interfaces whenever possible.
Or in any other category of hardware. With the current chip shortage and lack of viable competing options, it really sucks that there's literally two high performance GPU vendors that exist on the planet, Nvidia or AMD/ATI, and no other choices.
If there were some hidden feature that was not enabled on an Intel 100Gbps NIC, which could be enabled in an open source driver, I'm 100% in favor of doing that. Thankfully there isn't (all praise to our benevolent corporate overlords), but I can certainly see a scenario with another vendor where there might be.
I hope that if Intel were to ever go down the route of big ugly closed source binary blob to make a 100Gbps NIC function properly, that people would go buy hardware from another vendor. With some basic consumer grade 1Gbps ethernet stuff you can see this now on a base debian install, where you need to enable the 'non-free' repo and install a .deb for a Broadcom provided driver to make a NIC work. Because their driver is considerably less freely licensed than Intel's. One of the reasons why I try to steer away from any Broadcom network interfaces whenever possible.
Or in any other category of hardware. With the current chip shortage and lack of viable competing options, it really sucks that there's literally two high performance GPU vendors that exist on the planet, Nvidia or AMD/ATI, and no other choices.
To use most SFP+'s with Intel NICs, one has to load ixgbe with allow_unsupported_sfp=1 due to Intel's wanking. Ultimately this isn't a huge deal, but it's still an instance of corporate crap needlessly complicating Free software.
Super annoying behavior indeed.
But thanks to open source, being able to look at the driver and understanding how that SFP check is done, some people at the Serve The Home forum were able to figure out which EEPROM bit needs to be flipped for these cards to accept any and all SFP modules: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/patching-i...
I saw that and wrote an automated patcher as a quick python hack to automate that: https://gist.github.com/ixs/dbaac42730dea9bd124f26cbd439c58e
But thanks to open source, being able to look at the driver and understanding how that SFP check is done, some people at the Serve The Home forum were able to figure out which EEPROM bit needs to be flipped for these cards to accept any and all SFP modules: https://forums.servethehome.com/index.php?threads/patching-i...
I saw that and wrote an automated patcher as a quick python hack to automate that: https://gist.github.com/ixs/dbaac42730dea9bd124f26cbd439c58e
Another popular solution in an environment where you might have to support six different vendors' equipment, some of which is closed source (juniper, etc) and demands certain SFP+ EEPROM codes, from one pool of spare equipment, is to purchase the optics with blank eeproms and a coding box to write the vendor ID code onto them over i2c bus as needed. There's four or five transceiver companies I can think of now which provide the solution to do that.
Don Becker suggests otherwise.
Don Becker had the advantage of working for NASA, a.k.a. the federal government, where everything is automatically public domain. Even classified information developed by the U.S. government isn't copyrighted, it just isn't available (to me, and probably not to you). We owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr. Becker as a true public servant.
That's an interesting point, and one of which I'm well aware.
It wasn't the point being raised, however, which addressed knowledge requirements of writing network interface drivers.
It wasn't the point being raised, however, which addressed knowledge requirements of writing network interface drivers.
Network driver history!
https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/tux/net/donald-becker/
https://ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/tux/net/donald-becker/
Oh wow... thats a blast from the past..
Wonder what he's up to?
/me runs off to google
/me runs off to google
If they want to control it they can create their own repo and distribute it on their website. If it's going in the Linux kernel tree it should not be subject to single-handed decisions by a corporation.
This person can also quit IBM, therefore being subject to no contractual obligation, and then change the "IBM Power SRIOV Virtual NIC Device Driver" entirely free of constraint as long as their code pass review. IBM has no control over the code, only the people it pays to change it.
That's not quite right. If IBM is listed as maintainers for this driver, then any patches would necessarily go through them to end up in the mainline tree. And they could decide to reject patches from the person in question.
Although if this happened and legitimate code was rejected by IBM, what could happen is a community backlash against IBM as a maintainer and the code could enter that way.
Although if this happened and legitimate code was rejected by IBM, what could happen is a community backlash against IBM as a maintainer and the code could enter that way.
People higher up the directory tree can effectively override subdirectory maintainers, all the way up to Linus at the top.
> This person can also quit IBM, therefore being subject to no contractual obligation, and then change the "IBM Power SRIOV Virtual NIC Device Driver" entirely free
I'd assume the person has received confidential information about the IBM technology in question during his employment. Of course the Linux driver is open source so it cannot be a business secret. But typically there is much more knowledge than just the Linux source code. Using business secrets after your employment is most likely enforcable in many legislations. Damages or criminal charges or both.
I'd assume the person has received confidential information about the IBM technology in question during his employment. Of course the Linux driver is open source so it cannot be a business secret. But typically there is much more knowledge than just the Linux source code. Using business secrets after your employment is most likely enforcable in many legislations. Damages or criminal charges or both.
That's a fair point about clean room implementation. However, I can see IBM shooting themselves in the foot suing a kernel developer over an email address change, if said developer quits beforehand.
Such an action would only decrease developer goodwill towards IBM. Needless to say, IBM is already not one of the "cool" companies to work for.
Such an action would only decrease developer goodwill towards IBM. Needless to say, IBM is already not one of the "cool" companies to work for.
not really.
there is this stipulation of using a clean room in which to introduce your idea in order not to be sued for “stealing” intellectual property.
And often times, the same person cannot be used in that clean room.
there is this stipulation of using a clean room in which to introduce your idea in order not to be sued for “stealing” intellectual property.
And often times, the same person cannot be used in that clean room.
[deleted]
Nonsensical yes, but it would also be pretty awesome.
That being said, the last thing I would do is work with something related to this company without being paid for it.
The fact that the entire entry was removed, as opposed to simply changing the address, combined with the tone of the message, makes me think otherwise. However, I'm basing this off the exact same information as you (presumably), so it's a bit of a moot point until someone wants to pitch in with more authority.
Agreed. “remove yourself completely from the maintainers file”
As I interpret it, he cannot make updates at all, even though he's using his personal email address.
The important bit might be: what state he is in. Then to a lesser extent, what kind of work he does for IBM and what kind of work he does on the kernel.
The important bit might be: what state he is in. Then to a lesser extent, what kind of work he does for IBM and what kind of work he does on the kernel.
Yeah, it appears to overlap with their day to day work: https://lore.kernel.org/netdev/20200814075921.88745-5-ljp@li...
In the current employment environment where employers do assert rights over the output of employees, it's not that strange that the employer would instruct the employee to not muddy the context of the contributions.
This is reasonably separable from whether this is a good way to organize things as a society.
In the current employment environment where employers do assert rights over the output of employees, it's not that strange that the employer would instruct the employee to not muddy the context of the contributions.
This is reasonably separable from whether this is a good way to organize things as a society.
Any sort of administrative action or warning should not have to be interpreted. If that is the case, the warning should have been explicit that they are not allowed to contribute in any way because of said contracts. Instead, there's hand-wavy complaints about a "hobby" and very aggressive and cultish, "You are an IBM employee 100% of the time".
> "You are an IBM employee 100% of the time".
That would instantly make me start to execute on becoming an IBM employee 0% of my time.
That would instantly make me start to execute on becoming an IBM employee 0% of my time.
Clauses like that aren’t allowed in California. California law says that anything I do in my own time, on my own equipment, and not related to my company’s product is something my employer is not allowed to own.
I make this crystal clear whenever signing an “inventions” clause, and I avoid companies which make, say, DNS servers, for exactly that reason.
I make this crystal clear whenever signing an “inventions” clause, and I avoid companies which make, say, DNS servers, for exactly that reason.
In this case it is related to the company's product so that exemption would not apply.
The sentence in question is misinterpreted. I read it like this: our contract applies all the time, not only when you're directly working for the company. We don't know what the contract exactly says. Likely there's an agreement not to work on IBM-related products in spare time.
California law overrides illegal contracts. However, in this case such provisions would be legal as the sibling comments point out.
Why only CA? Shouldn't it be that "the law" overrides illegal contracts - basically a tautology? Otherwise, what's stopping anyone from writing illegal contracts and forcing the other party to abide by them?
Because the basis of every state's contract laws are different. Something are illegal in CA but not in NY.
Sure, but in this case they were working on the kernel driver of an IBM NIC.
Remember that all we see is the bit of the email (presumably?) that the employee chose to post in the commit message. We don't know what other context there is. This feels like the last email in a long chain of emails, with a manager who's just done with excuses and trying to shut down any further argument in advance.
Thank you thank you for posting this, comments like this are a reason I love HN and despise places like Twitter, where the name of the game often just seems to be to take stuff out of context in the hopes of getting a juicy, negative soundbite.
This manager could be an asshole, or he could just be exasperated after previous communication with the employee. Point is, we just don't know, and it's dangerous to draw conclusions based on the single email that the aggrieved individual chose to post.
This manager could be an asshole, or he could just be exasperated after previous communication with the employee. Point is, we just don't know, and it's dangerous to draw conclusions based on the single email that the aggrieved individual chose to post.
> take stuff out of context in the hopes of getting a juicy, negative soundbite
Pretty much anyone who goes through someone’s posting history to find something then post it out of context to make someone look bad is someone who is not acting in good faith. Usually, the motive is to be a bully.
Pretty much anyone who goes through someone’s posting history to find something then post it out of context to make someone look bad is someone who is not acting in good faith. Usually, the motive is to be a bully.
Now you're the one removing context. This wasn't going through history to find something, this was part of the instructions they just got.
I would direct message you, but since you have decided to be completely anonymous with no contact information in your profile, I have to make this public.
It’s not removing context. It’s conversation drift, which frequently happens in online conversations. The post I was replying to mentioned Twitter, and it’s well known that some Twitter users will go though someone’s old blog or what not to find “a juicy, negative soundbite”. There’s even an expression for it: “offense archaeology”.
Please do not make bad faith accusations without looking at the full context of the conversation, which includes the post I was replying to. I don’t know what your intentions were making that reply, but it comes off to me as rude.
It’s not removing context. It’s conversation drift, which frequently happens in online conversations. The post I was replying to mentioned Twitter, and it’s well known that some Twitter users will go though someone’s old blog or what not to find “a juicy, negative soundbite”. There’s even an expression for it: “offense archaeology”.
Please do not make bad faith accusations without looking at the full context of the conversation, which includes the post I was replying to. I don’t know what your intentions were making that reply, but it comes off to me as rude.
I didn't say you were operating in bad faith, I said you were removing context. And I stand by that.
> It’s conversation drift
You were quoting something that was being directly applied to the article. If you were only talking about twitter it's on you to make that clear. To me, your post very much reads as talking about both.
> I have to make this public.
Good. Someone clarifying what they meant should be public.
> It’s conversation drift
You were quoting something that was being directly applied to the article. If you were only talking about twitter it's on you to make that clear. To me, your post very much reads as talking about both.
> I have to make this public.
Good. Someone clarifying what they meant should be public.
> he could just be exasperated after previous communication with the employee
Then they are a very poor manager. That kind of tone and language should never be used. If it has gotten to that point, then the issue should be escalated to HR. But it doesn't sound at all like they're exasperated. It sounds like they're a bully.
Then they are a very poor manager. That kind of tone and language should never be used. If it has gotten to that point, then the issue should be escalated to HR. But it doesn't sound at all like they're exasperated. It sounds like they're a bully.
> That kind of tone and language should never be used
The manager may have sent the email, but legal and/or employee relations wrote that.
The manager may have sent the email, but legal and/or employee relations wrote that.
Legal most certainly did not write that. No serious professional wrote that.
Sounds like the type of email a manager who's stuck as the messenger for legal and/or HR and knows that this type of message has to be by-the-book in case it ever ends up as part of a legal proceeding. Unfortunately you can be the best manager in the world, but in that situation you still end up writing roughly the same email as someone who's barely competent.
The included message is probably lacking a lot of both written and unwritten context.
> Any sort of administrative action or warning should not have to be interpreted
All communication, inherently, must be intepreted. Administrative actions and warnings have no special exemption from this.
All communication, inherently, must be intepreted. Administrative actions and warnings have no special exemption from this.
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
Sorry but that violates FLSA. You're only an employee when you're doing work. They don't own you.
Sorry but that violates FLSA. You're only an employee when you're doing work. They don't own you.
I think it’s just poorly phrased and what they’re trying to say is that their status as “IBM employee” is a boolean value. You either are an IBM employee (and presumably have some additional contractual requirements) or you aren’t.
No, I think this was pretty standard company-speak for "you're salaried so we own all your creative output, regardless of when or where you create it". Most employment contracts in the bay area (at least) have language to this effect, regardless of whether or not it's enforceable. Even if it isn't, an employer can still make your life miserable over it, and there's not much you can do about it aside from quit.
If you are an exempt employee you are bound to legal contracts if they say they own your output 100% of the time, unfortunately.
Any such warning needs to be clear to the employee. There's no particular requirement for it to be clear to the rest of us.
Makes sense, but:
"Hey John, there are legal reasons preventing us from working on VNIC even in an unofficial capacity as IBM employees. I've attached a document outlining the company position as background. Let's chat more about this on Thursday in our 1:1."
"Hey John, there are legal reasons preventing us from working on VNIC even in an unofficial capacity as IBM employees. I've attached a document outlining the company position as background. Let's chat more about this on Thursday in our 1:1."
I suspect from the tone of the email that the manager may have already tried that route and gotten pushback. It feels very much like a manager who is tired of the excuses and trying to be as unequivocal as possible so as to be 100% clear.
And that's assuming we even have an accurate statement, which is a big assumption. Aside from the missing context, we frankly don't know that any of this text was written by the manager.
And that's assuming we even have an accurate statement, which is a big assumption. Aside from the missing context, we frankly don't know that any of this text was written by the manager.
That's being a bit generous. It's entirely possible the manager could be an asshole at best and in violation of FLSA at worst.
The notion that the communication could wind up on the LKML, HN, or more widely distributed, could still argue for restraint in voice.
The employer ultimately has all the power here. Bullying ... doesn't add much.
The employer ultimately has all the power here. Bullying ... doesn't add much.
Depending on internal policy, this could be reason enough for the employee to be fired.
Unless explicitly authorised, I’m not allowed to quote an internal email on a public forum.
As I read it, it looks like it was decided, by IBM, the employee would no longer be a maintainer and adding a personal email to the list of maintainers was a misrepresentation of their current role.
Unless explicitly authorised, I’m not allowed to quote an internal email on a public forum.
As I read it, it looks like it was decided, by IBM, the employee would no longer be a maintainer and adding a personal email to the list of maintainers was a misrepresentation of their current role.
I suspect that HR is probably discussing termination procedure as we speak and this will proceed unless the PR pressure is overwhelming and makes it difficult to retaliate.
Unlikely since termination would mean that Lijun can resume work on the kernel.
That might depend on non-competes (legal in most states outside California), and how they're interpreted.
IBM's bad-will generation here is large.
IBM's bad-will generation here is large.
Maybe, but he still won't be paid for it.
Sounds like a reasonable interpretation. The phrasing of the message that the developer claims to have received is still concerning even keeping that in mind.
Yes, it's concerning, but it has to the feel of being the end of a long conversation. I'm picturing something like this:
Manager: You're not allowed to contribute to VNIC.
Employee: But I'm doing it on my spare time!
Manager: You're still not allowed to contribute to VNIC.
Employee: But I'm using my personal email.
Manager: * the email quoted *
---
It feels like someone who's hit the end of their rope with a long back-and-forth and is trying to close any remaining loopholes just to be done with the conversation.
Manager: You're not allowed to contribute to VNIC.
Employee: But I'm doing it on my spare time!
Manager: You're still not allowed to contribute to VNIC.
Employee: But I'm using my personal email.
Manager: * the email quoted *
---
It feels like someone who's hit the end of their rope with a long back-and-forth and is trying to close any remaining loopholes just to be done with the conversation.
Very good point, the message may be taken out of context that would change the interpretation of the message significantly.
>You are not allowed to use your personal email account
as a "hobby"
That's such a wide ranging statement, I'm kinda surprised the person writing it didn't stop and think "Yeah that sounds horrible...I can't believe I just typed that..."
That's such a wide ranging statement, I'm kinda surprised the person writing it didn't stop and think "Yeah that sounds horrible...I can't believe I just typed that..."
The sentence was probably written by a lawyer, which would explain why something that sounds ludicrous to you and I sounds normal to them. And this isn't a troll! Lawyers speak a different language than the rest of us, and play by a different set of rules that Normal People would never think of.
The sentence sounds like the kind of email that a manager sends without having legal review it... This reads like it makes an unnecessary, potentially damaging statement ("...100% of the time..."), which lawyers I work with would likely have objected to...
I imagine if I'd worked with legal on something like this as the manager, they'd have advised me to convey the reasoning in a verbal, non-recorded meeting, and then for confirmation just issue a terse command with limited leak damage potential: "As discussed, please remove yourself..."
I imagine if I'd worked with legal on something like this as the manager, they'd have advised me to convey the reasoning in a verbal, non-recorded meeting, and then for confirmation just issue a terse command with limited leak damage potential: "As discussed, please remove yourself..."
It doesn't seem like a legalish style sentence to me.
Lawyers don’t talk like contracts all the time. Nevertheless, it’s usually obvious when they write policy because you get stupid things like this that clearly follow the letter of the law without regards to how they would ge construed.
I'm reading through these first level comments and just wondering how the hell anyone here would react to a non-white collar job.
Now to put this into perspective, I agree with most of you! But the freedom you guys have (quit, say noz find a new job) etc just won't work for the rest of us.
I'm not saying this to look down on you guys, just trying to give a different perspective if this wasn't a white collar job
Edit: I will reply, but I'm about to start work and I won't finish for another 13 hours (30 mins still left on my daily transit)
Now to put this into perspective, I agree with most of you! But the freedom you guys have (quit, say noz find a new job) etc just won't work for the rest of us.
I'm not saying this to look down on you guys, just trying to give a different perspective if this wasn't a white collar job
Edit: I will reply, but I'm about to start work and I won't finish for another 13 hours (30 mins still left on my daily transit)
Most of tech workers aren't half as free as the 5-years-at-FAANG-plus-a-moderately-successful-exit-already-got-my-Fuck-You-money folks who hang around this site. Most are working on boring Java programs or managing corporate networks, for well under mid-tier doctor compensation. Certainly not SF tech-giant money. And that's just in the US, let alone internationally, where comp even in tech-heavy cities doesn't approach FAANG-on-the-West-Cost or finance-in-NY-and-Chi salaries. The profession as a whole is a damn sight closer to blue-collar than we all want to pretend it is, and social status bears that out, especially (again) outside SF tech & VC circles. The fancy-B-school CEO at your tech startup is socially superior to the highly-paid tech nerds. That's just how class in America works. Earn enough money as a tech nerd and maybe your kids will be the next rung up the ladder, if you make the right choices especially re: where to send them to school (and I don't mean higher ed).
Expressions of superiority over or freedom from management on here are class-anxious posturing, expressions of a lived reality by a rare few, and sheer fantasy the rest of the time.
Expressions of superiority over or freedom from management on here are class-anxious posturing, expressions of a lived reality by a rare few, and sheer fantasy the rest of the time.
I've read through this multiple times and I am just missing your point.
I am not US based nor a faang worker.
My point was about how difficult it is for a blue collar worker to push back against anything, and while I appreciate that it may be difficult for you, or any other programmer, have a look at us lower slobs as well.
You strike? Okay discussion? We strike? We get attacked physically and online with groups we cannot help but be drown out by
I am not US based nor a faang worker.
My point was about how difficult it is for a blue collar worker to push back against anything, and while I appreciate that it may be difficult for you, or any other programmer, have a look at us lower slobs as well.
You strike? Okay discussion? We strike? We get attacked physically and online with groups we cannot help but be drown out by
Oh god, sorry, I didn't mean to woe-is-me programmers to some kind of perfect equivalence with $35-40k-and-bennies-if-we're-lucky/unionized blue collar folks. I do think in terms of power dynamics most tech workers are much closer to that than to the "professional class" (doctors, lawyers, professors sort-of-but-less-so-these-days) or Fussellian upper-middle that they wish they were. $80-175k doesn't break them out of the tier of income where they're burning much of their money competing with the other working-class stiffs for e.g. housing, and (very relatedly) education for their kids. It's more comfortable, yes, and it'd be crazy to complain about it compared to the alternative, but it's also much more similar than it is different, as far as ability to tell a manager "no".
My intent was just to highlight the above: that most people employed in "tech" would perform a very similar calculation to what any other blue collar worker would, and would end up at the same conclusion of cowing to management. The market's better, sure, but if you're not part of the Tech Worker Aristocracy, and especially if you have a family, you're gonna ask "how high" when the boss says "jump", just like any other poor blue-collar bastard. The top-level comments you were wondering about aren't representative of most of the tech-work world (same as much of the perspective, or at least the apparent perspective, of this site isn't)
My intent was just to highlight the above: that most people employed in "tech" would perform a very similar calculation to what any other blue collar worker would, and would end up at the same conclusion of cowing to management. The market's better, sure, but if you're not part of the Tech Worker Aristocracy, and especially if you have a family, you're gonna ask "how high" when the boss says "jump", just like any other poor blue-collar bastard. The top-level comments you were wondering about aren't representative of most of the tech-work world (same as much of the perspective, or at least the apparent perspective, of this site isn't)
You may have a (rather long winded :-p) point there, but a white collar worker has a lot more options than a blue collar.
Easier to replace a forklift driver than a coder.
But don't let that make you think, that I don't realise it's also difficult for a white collar. I've been there. I wish I had stayed. I just ask that when. You guys are feeling that pressure, to spare a though as to what tools and such you can do to help us down here.
Easier to replace a forklift driver than a coder.
But don't let that make you think, that I don't realise it's also difficult for a white collar. I've been there. I wish I had stayed. I just ask that when. You guys are feeling that pressure, to spare a though as to what tools and such you can do to help us down here.
I believe you're mostly in vociferous agreement. If anything I read GPs posts as a warning that we (software developers) do ourselves a disservice pretending to be superior to other forms of labour.
The big advantage that tech workers have is that the supply/demand relationship is more in favour of the workers than the company. In most cases if you end up not having a job for some reason, you would expect to be able to find an at least passable one fairly quickly. This means that we always have the fallback option of quitting if we're not happy. yThat then limits (to some extent) how shitty our employers can be to us and expect to continue to function.
The other side of the coin is the much larger group of people who struggle to find any job that will pay the bills. If they can get one it's a dice roll whether their boss treats them with some decency or not. They can't "quit if it's shit" because they might not be able to find another job and they risk starving or getting evicted.
The other side of the coin is the much larger group of people who struggle to find any job that will pay the bills. If they can get one it's a dice roll whether their boss treats them with some decency or not. They can't "quit if it's shit" because they might not be able to find another job and they risk starving or getting evicted.
For blue collars this is even more clear-cut. You're clearly paid for what you physically produce during your work time. What you produce at home is yours.
If you're a blue collar I don't think any employer would claim ownership of the DIY stuff you produce in your garage.
If you're a blue collar I don't think any employer would claim ownership of the DIY stuff you produce in your garage.
> IBM employee forced to stop kernel work for using personal email address
This seems inaccurate. More accurate appears to be “IBM employee not allowed to change to using a personal email address and claim of ‘hobby’ to workaround instruction not to work on open source project.”
This seems inaccurate. More accurate appears to be “IBM employee not allowed to change to using a personal email address and claim of ‘hobby’ to workaround instruction not to work on open source project.”
No need for scare quotes, it is a hobby.
Can you explain how, exactly, for three IBM employees, it's their paid job, and for a fourth IBM employee, it's a hobby (but until recently it was also their paid job)?
If you do it and you aren't paid or otherwise compelled to do it, it's a hobby. Simple as that.
-----
The point isn't that hobbies are legally sacrosanct. They clearly aren't. But it's not the company's place to categorize what I do in my free time beyond what's stipulated my contract. "Hobby" in scare quotes has no purpose in the manager's email.
-----
The point isn't that hobbies are legally sacrosanct. They clearly aren't. But it's not the company's place to categorize what I do in my free time beyond what's stipulated my contract. "Hobby" in scare quotes has no purpose in the manager's email.
We don't know the backstory. There could have been confrontation or issues between the other IBM employees working on this with the employee asked to stop. Having him then demand to still work with those employees through the kernel as a "hobby" would then be problematic.
> But it's not the company's place to categorize what I do in my free time beyond what's stipulated my contract.
IBM is probably legally OK telling him he can't work on the kernel on a driver for IBM hardware that he started working on as part of a team at IBM without facing employment consequences.
> But it's not the company's place to categorize what I do in my free time beyond what's stipulated my contract.
IBM is probably legally OK telling him he can't work on the kernel on a driver for IBM hardware that he started working on as part of a team at IBM without facing employment consequences.
> IBM is probably legally OK telling him he can't work on the kernel on a driver for IBM hardware that he started working on as part of a team at IBM without facing employment consequences.
Yes I am not contesting this. But that's because the contract allows IBM to mess with hobbies, not because some things, by virtue of being under the pervue of the contract, are no longer hobbies.
I am not going to allow somebody else's contract to indirectly change the meaning of english words.
> We don't know the backstory. There could have been confrontation or issues between the other IBM employees working on this with the employee asked to stop. Having him then demand to still work with those employees through the kernel as a "hobby" would then be problematic.
That doesn't make it not a hobby though. IBM has contractual power (unfortunately) to control their employees outside conributions, but it's philosophically dangerous extend that contractual control to re characterize what it means to contribute to Linux on your own time.
Yes I am not contesting this. But that's because the contract allows IBM to mess with hobbies, not because some things, by virtue of being under the pervue of the contract, are no longer hobbies.
I am not going to allow somebody else's contract to indirectly change the meaning of english words.
> We don't know the backstory. There could have been confrontation or issues between the other IBM employees working on this with the employee asked to stop. Having him then demand to still work with those employees through the kernel as a "hobby" would then be problematic.
That doesn't make it not a hobby though. IBM has contractual power (unfortunately) to control their employees outside conributions, but it's philosophically dangerous extend that contractual control to re characterize what it means to contribute to Linux on your own time.
> That doesn't make it not a hobby though. IBM has contractual power (unfortunately) to control their employees outside conributions, but it's philosophically dangerous extend that contractual control to re characterize what it means to contribute to Linux on your own time.
Again, we don't have the context. It sounds like something an exasperated manager might write if an employee is told not to work on it anymore and they change it to their personal email and say they're going to work on it as a "hobby".
Again, we don't have the context. It sounds like something an exasperated manager might write if an employee is told not to work on it anymore and they change it to their personal email and say they're going to work on it as a "hobby".
[deleted]
Just a note, making a "100%" statement like this is illegal in California.
In California, you are free to make contributions on your own time with your own computer, and those rights can't be contracted away. You are not a slave.
See https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
In California, you are free to make contributions on your own time with your own computer, and those rights can't be contracted away. You are not a slave.
See https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
As others have already pointed out elsewhere in this discussion, one of the exceptions written into the law ( "(1)" in your link) is relevant to this situation.
> In California, you are free to make contributions on your own time with your own computer, and those rights can't be contracted away. You are not a slave.
If you do that and your contract gets terminated for "unrelated" reasons, what can you do in California to fight this?
TBH people are missing the point here. Employment is a "trust" thing. If your future employer tells you they don't want you doing that in your free time, you are free to pursue other opportunities.
But if you accept, and then they find out you did not keep your word, you won't keep your job for long even if you say "but the law allows this", because the employer can just say "but we don't trust you anymore", and that's it.
If you don't want to accept these terms, don't accept them. But accepting them to break them is not great.
If you do that and your contract gets terminated for "unrelated" reasons, what can you do in California to fight this?
TBH people are missing the point here. Employment is a "trust" thing. If your future employer tells you they don't want you doing that in your free time, you are free to pursue other opportunities.
But if you accept, and then they find out you did not keep your word, you won't keep your job for long even if you say "but the law allows this", because the employer can just say "but we don't trust you anymore", and that's it.
If you don't want to accept these terms, don't accept them. But accepting them to break them is not great.
They can if the work is related to your position. What counts for that? You’ll figure it out when you sue your employer after they fire you.
In this case, the contributions in question are to IBM's VNIC driver, which undoubtedly counts as "related to your position". Up until a few months ago, this employee was contributing to VNIC in an official capacity, using their work email. We don't know what changed, but that shows a clear connection that would be hard to dispute.
If they said "as an IBM employee with access to NDA'd/company secret documents on this thing, we do not want you to work on this", I would understand it.
But they didn't, and if it's just like this - that's straight A-grade bullshit.
But they didn't, and if it's just like this - that's straight A-grade bullshit.
We don't know they didn't say that. We only have what appears to be an excerpt that is missing a ton of context.
At this point we can't rule out that the employee cut the most damning part of an email out of context, put it in the commit message, and submitted this post on HN themselves (it's posted by a throwaway, so it's likely someone intimately involved in the case, not someone who just stumbled across it).
At this point we can't rule out that the employee cut the most damning part of an email out of context, put it in the commit message, and submitted this post on HN themselves (it's posted by a throwaway, so it's likely someone intimately involved in the case, not someone who just stumbled across it).
That is certainly a possibility, but if the quoted text is quoted verbatim, the way it is worded doesn't really feel like there was much more context. But that's just a guess on my end, and I'm relying on the assumption it was quoted unmodified.
That said, fundamentally, the question is whether you trust in Lijun Pan to represent the situation without distorting it. Without evidence to the contrary my personal assumption is to start with a little "trust credit" and take it as it is — for now…
That said, fundamentally, the question is whether you trust in Lijun Pan to represent the situation without distorting it. Without evidence to the contrary my personal assumption is to start with a little "trust credit" and take it as it is — for now…
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
This is abusive. 100% or their (probably) 40h/week contract. Other than that, they are owner of their own time.
This is abusive. 100% or their (probably) 40h/week contract. Other than that, they are owner of their own time.
It's a factually accurate statement; I don't think IBM is claiming rights to 100% of their time, just that they are bound by their contractual obligations as an employee (and function as a representative of the company) 100% of the time - which is true and correct.
It's not abnormal for employers to put conduct clauses in contracts that impact life outside of your work hours. For example, you are likely not allowed to say bad things about your employer online, even if you are off the clock. Athletes often have clauses about not being allowed to do certain risky activities to avoid injury. You might be on call during off hours.
At least in Germany, these clauses are unenforceable on regular low level staff.
Trying to pull a move like "I only have to follow NDAs when I'm clocked in and using my work email account" wouldn't fly at ANY company I've ever worked at.
Sounds like an (overt) attempt at getting all their contributions to come from a `@linux.ibm.com` account, which might make sense depending on what their arrangement with IBM is?
For example if IBM were paying them a full-time salary to maintain VNIC as a representative of IBM then it makes sense for IBM to ask for what they're paying for, or at least to not let them add "personal" contributions to the mix?
Source for my conjecture is:
> Lijun Pan <[email protected]>
And:
> Lijun Pan <[email protected]>
So they want them to use the IBM email association all of the time
For example if IBM were paying them a full-time salary to maintain VNIC as a representative of IBM then it makes sense for IBM to ask for what they're paying for, or at least to not let them add "personal" contributions to the mix?
Source for my conjecture is:
> Lijun Pan <[email protected]>
And:
> Lijun Pan <[email protected]>
So they want them to use the IBM email association all of the time
Here the issue is that he was an official contributor as part of an IBM team working on this driver for IBM hardware... and that IBM decided they did not want him to do this anymore. He then changed the maintainer file to point to his personal email.
Which would indicate he is still available _for free_ to do the duty of reviewing the patches.
Good open source citizen, if you ask me.
Good open source citizen, if you ask me.
Setting up to do it outside of work as a "hobby" might still be being a good open source citizen, but it doesn't mean that IBM may not have some legitimate concerns. If there's e.g. a bad interpersonal situation on the team, IBM might not want him to interact with other members of that group anymore. Or, since he's likely handled proprietary IBM information relating to that hardware, ongoing work on the subsystem outside of an official capacity could be problematic.
"You are an IBM employee 100% of the time"
What a joke - hope the salary makes this indentured servitude worth it.
What a joke - hope the salary makes this indentured servitude worth it.
Like others have mentioned this definitely sounds like the last of a long chain of emails.
And it really has the tone of just because you do it on your own time, with your own personal email as a “hobby” doesn’t mean you can use it as a loophole to get around restrictions IBM employees might have.
So, for example, if IBM isn’t allowed to contribute to a specific project for legal or contractual reasons, an employee doing so “in their own time” would not be a defensible argument.
And it really has the tone of just because you do it on your own time, with your own personal email as a “hobby” doesn’t mean you can use it as a loophole to get around restrictions IBM employees might have.
So, for example, if IBM isn’t allowed to contribute to a specific project for legal or contractual reasons, an employee doing so “in their own time” would not be a defensible argument.
It still has ramifications for personal contributions on their own time. We are our own persons, with our own desires and choices not to be dictated by our employers. I work for a corporation that says they own every piece of executable code that comes out of my fingertips and I think it is utter bullshit.
If I want to fix a bug in an esoteric Scheme implementation OR a bug in a JDK or PHP I have to ask for permission even though it is on my own time. I already volunteer more time than I am paid to my employer, but I have to ask for permission for something they have literally no interest in.
This is bullshit.
If I want to fix a bug in an esoteric Scheme implementation OR a bug in a JDK or PHP I have to ask for permission even though it is on my own time. I already volunteer more time than I am paid to my employer, but I have to ask for permission for something they have literally no interest in.
This is bullshit.
I agree that these things tend to overreach (the more powerful party in a negotiation will always try to get as much as they can), but most employment agreements will only claim ownership over things that you do in your own time that are related to your company's line of business. And in states like California and I believe Washington, companies cannot legally try to claim more than that. It's still more than I'd like, but I also can't get too worked up about it.
One way around that is to never put your real name on stuff outside of/owned by your employer. Keep your work and personal life as separated as possible.
Trying to do an end-run around legal issues by using pseudonyms is something you should only do after careful consideration of what might happen if that pseudonym becomes known.
It's not unreasonable to review and modify the proposed contract that an employer offers. As skilled employees who's services are in demand, you've got a good chance of them coming to the table on that.
It's not unreasonable to review and modify the proposed contract that an employer offers. As skilled employees who's services are in demand, you've got a good chance of them coming to the table on that.
thank you ParanoidRobot for the important recommendation
-signed,
Arthur Collé
-signed,
Arthur Collé
"Then pay me for 24 hours a day."
I mean, salaried jobs do pay you for 24 hours a day.
Not typically. Imagine if you make 130k a year but then your boss adds a mandatory meeting at 1:30am your relative time to triage support issues.
That might be OK within the parameters of their delusional mindset, but it's still fucked up and should not be allowed.
That might be OK within the parameters of their delusional mindset, but it's still fucked up and should not be allowed.
Working in backbone operations for a mid sized ISP, we sure don't have 1:30 meetings, but we do have scheduled 1:30 maintenance events (planned several weeks in advance), and people on the on-call list are expected to be available for middle of the night emergencies. Catastrophic fiber cuts and equipment failures like a roof failing and pouring water onto a DWDM chassis have the tendency to occur at fun times like 0330 in the morning on a holiday.
It is expected and known that if you do something like respond to a 0130 in the morning emergency and work the issue until 0430, then go to sleep, that you're going to sleep until whenever you wake up in the mid afternoon and probably not be useful for any other tasks that day.
I should point out that the salaried employees expected to respond to such things are compensated appropriately, and the general practice is to have a group of people so that each person is only on-call for some portion of each month.
The rank and file NOC employees and fiber splicers, field crews, field technicians are hourly employees and get overtime for incidents as described above. Depending on the state and labor laws they're also paid an hourly rate simply for being on-call, even if nothing happens, for the duration of their on-call rotation week(s).
It is expected and known that if you do something like respond to a 0130 in the morning emergency and work the issue until 0430, then go to sleep, that you're going to sleep until whenever you wake up in the mid afternoon and probably not be useful for any other tasks that day.
I should point out that the salaried employees expected to respond to such things are compensated appropriately, and the general practice is to have a group of people so that each person is only on-call for some portion of each month.
The rank and file NOC employees and fiber splicers, field crews, field technicians are hourly employees and get overtime for incidents as described above. Depending on the state and labor laws they're also paid an hourly rate simply for being on-call, even if nothing happens, for the duration of their on-call rotation week(s).
Everything you said sounds reasonable. Tasks and hours are related to the specific work at hand, and mitigations are then given, as temporary allowances, to employees if extra work is demanded that are outside of "core hours"
I was just trying to highlight that I personally hate "core hours" and that if I'm on a marathon coding session from 9pm to 4am, and I'm intermittently unavailable from some arbitrary time (say 11:15am to 11:50am) and then I get a bunch of messages from bosses saying "where were you??" and I then explain that I was actually writing code, point to some commits and say "see? I did all this stuff" and they say "you are expected to work from 9am to 6pm" it feels like a slap in the face. I think good management should accept that people aren't robots (unless there is an outage, fair enough) and consider people's working preferences in their decisions.
Anyways, I'm sure you have some awesome war stories with deployments/maintenance events. You should share them sometime :D
I was just trying to highlight that I personally hate "core hours" and that if I'm on a marathon coding session from 9pm to 4am, and I'm intermittently unavailable from some arbitrary time (say 11:15am to 11:50am) and then I get a bunch of messages from bosses saying "where were you??" and I then explain that I was actually writing code, point to some commits and say "see? I did all this stuff" and they say "you are expected to work from 9am to 6pm" it feels like a slap in the face. I think good management should accept that people aren't robots (unless there is an outage, fair enough) and consider people's working preferences in their decisions.
Anyways, I'm sure you have some awesome war stories with deployments/maintenance events. You should share them sometime :D
There are definitely good reasons to, at minimum, have you _available_ from 9-6; say, for a meeting or to bring a coworker up to speed on what you're working on, but at the same time you don't necessarily need to be pinned to your desktop for the entire period of time to do that. Since remote working started I've taken advantage of that big time by just running errands during the work day but keeping my phone close by in case I get a ping on Slack.
I have a feeling you would be shocked at the percentage of people in wealthy country's who would wake up at 1:30am every day for a meeting for 130k. Fucked up is very strong language.
I'd prefer a 1:30am meeting compared to a 9:30am meeting lol, I was just trying to appeal to what is most preferred, i.e. normal 9am to 6pm "working hours"
I was gearing my response in terms of what seems reasonable to expect... but yeah I'm sure everyone would try to stretch themselves to absorb more capital.
I was gearing my response in terms of what seems reasonable to expect... but yeah I'm sure everyone would try to stretch themselves to absorb more capital.
No, they pay you a salary based on agreed working hours, usually a 40 hour working week. If that wasn't the case, they'd be firing you for going home at the end of the day.
"No, they pay you a salary based on agreed working hours, usually a 40 hour working week. If that wasn't the case, they'd be firing you for going home at the end of the day."
Hmm, do they? It's not in my contract, and (unfortunately) the labour law in Ontario for my profession doesn't support it either. We are expected to be "deliverable based" I think, rather than effort/work based. IANAL etc, but my observation is that Hourly employees are compensated for their hours; but it's less straightforward for salaried workers.
Hmm, do they? It's not in my contract, and (unfortunately) the labour law in Ontario for my profession doesn't support it either. We are expected to be "deliverable based" I think, rather than effort/work based. IANAL etc, but my observation is that Hourly employees are compensated for their hours; but it's less straightforward for salaried workers.
What profession are you in?
I'm in IT, and IIRC IT is one of the professions where salaried FTEs are not entitled to overtime in Ontario, but all of the salaried FTE contracts I've ever signed since the mid 90s had a specified number (usually 40) of working hours.
I'm in IT, and IIRC IT is one of the professions where salaried FTEs are not entitled to overtime in Ontario, but all of the salaried FTE contracts I've ever signed since the mid 90s had a specified number (usually 40) of working hours.
Same - I'm in IT, and like our nobble compatriots mushroom & shrubery growers [1], I'm not entitled to Overtime in Ontario :)
1: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/010285#BK20
1: https://www.ontario.ca/laws/regulation/010285#BK20
This isn't true in my experience (USA). No salaried job I've worked at has contractually stated working hours. All mainstream tech jobs. People go home at reasonable times due to social norms, not because it's in a contract.
No, they pay you to go home at the end of the day. That's part of your contract.
If you instead go to another job at the end of your eight hours, they'll fire you.
If you even go to your secret other home you haven't told them about in another state (or worse, another country), and that creates tax withholding obligations in that state, they may not fire you, but they will be very displeased.
If you instead go to another job at the end of your eight hours, they'll fire you.
If you even go to your secret other home you haven't told them about in another state (or worse, another country), and that creates tax withholding obligations in that state, they may not fire you, but they will be very displeased.
> No, they pay you to go home at the end of the day. That's part of your contract.
Does your contract actually say this explicitly? Mine doesn't and I'm not sure it'd even be enforceable if it did.
> If you instead go to another job at the end of your eight hours, they'll fire you.
You are aware that there is a fairly large number of people who work multiple jobs, right? And that they usually don't ask permission to do so?
Now, it is true that this isn't common in software development jobs, but employment contracts for software development jobs aren't magic -- they're pretty much the same as any other employment contract.
(It's also probably not legal to fire someone for working a second job, at least here in Australia.)
I am also floored that someone actually thinks that their job is something they're paid to do 24/7.
Does your contract actually say this explicitly? Mine doesn't and I'm not sure it'd even be enforceable if it did.
> If you instead go to another job at the end of your eight hours, they'll fire you.
You are aware that there is a fairly large number of people who work multiple jobs, right? And that they usually don't ask permission to do so?
Now, it is true that this isn't common in software development jobs, but employment contracts for software development jobs aren't magic -- they're pretty much the same as any other employment contract.
(It's also probably not legal to fire someone for working a second job, at least here in Australia.)
I am also floored that someone actually thinks that their job is something they're paid to do 24/7.
I am prohibited by my employment contract from working a second job without approval.
It doesn't say, of course, that I'm supposed to go home. I can go to the bar, the library, the bowling alley, whatever. But it does say that I can't hold a second paid job (and it does demand that I truthfully tell them where I live). I am very much being paid not to work a second job.
Maybe you aren't! But I am, this is fairly normal for salaried positions in America, it's almost certainly enforceable, and it's something I willingly signed and accepted when I took this job.
I am aware there are a large number of people working non-salaried jobs who work multiple jobs. This thread is specifically about salaried jobs.
More relevantly to the thread, my contract also says that any work I do which is related to my employer's actual business is owned by my employer, whether or not I do it on work time or at work. I paid actual lawyers to review that portion of the contract before I signed it, and they told me it is absolutely enforceable. In this case, the question is whether an IBM employee can hack on an IBM-authored, IBM-maintained driver for IBM computers, contributing to which used to be part of their job on the side. It would be absolutely defensible for IBM to say they own this work regardless of when it happens, and it would be frankly surprising if the employment contract did not say that.
It doesn't say, of course, that I'm supposed to go home. I can go to the bar, the library, the bowling alley, whatever. But it does say that I can't hold a second paid job (and it does demand that I truthfully tell them where I live). I am very much being paid not to work a second job.
Maybe you aren't! But I am, this is fairly normal for salaried positions in America, it's almost certainly enforceable, and it's something I willingly signed and accepted when I took this job.
I am aware there are a large number of people working non-salaried jobs who work multiple jobs. This thread is specifically about salaried jobs.
More relevantly to the thread, my contract also says that any work I do which is related to my employer's actual business is owned by my employer, whether or not I do it on work time or at work. I paid actual lawyers to review that portion of the contract before I signed it, and they told me it is absolutely enforceable. In this case, the question is whether an IBM employee can hack on an IBM-authored, IBM-maintained driver for IBM computers, contributing to which used to be part of their job on the side. It would be absolutely defensible for IBM to say they own this work regardless of when it happens, and it would be frankly surprising if the employment contract did not say that.
I think it's the inherent weirdness of what USA considers "salaried" job - it seems to me that you essentially don't have set hours, your pay isn't related to the hours you put in, and any overtime gets waived in programming by the overtime exempt rule.
If this sounds to you like shit sandwich, that's because it is one, even if some people manage to make it work with less hours than norm.
If this sounds to you like shit sandwich, that's because it is one, even if some people manage to make it work with less hours than norm.
> Does your contract actually say this explicitly? Mine doesn't and I'm not sure it'd even be enforceable if it did.
moonlighting clauses are fairly standard and I'd be surprised if your contract doesn't include one.
> You are aware that there is a fairly large number of people who work multiple jobs, right? And that they usually don't ask permission to do so?
Yes, people violate their employment contracts.
> (It's also probably not legal to fire someone for working a second job, at least here in Australia.)
The enforceability of moonlight contracts may vary. For example working at a software company and moonlighting as a barista is less likely to be enforceable than working at a software company and moonlighting at another (or moonlighting as a freelance developer), at least in the US, the second is probably a violation.
Not that this matters in the US since you're usually at will anyway.
moonlighting clauses are fairly standard and I'd be surprised if your contract doesn't include one.
> You are aware that there is a fairly large number of people who work multiple jobs, right? And that they usually don't ask permission to do so?
Yes, people violate their employment contracts.
> (It's also probably not legal to fire someone for working a second job, at least here in Australia.)
The enforceability of moonlight contracts may vary. For example working at a software company and moonlighting as a barista is less likely to be enforceable than working at a software company and moonlighting at another (or moonlighting as a freelance developer), at least in the US, the second is probably a violation.
Not that this matters in the US since you're usually at will anyway.
I get your point, but it seems pedantic. They still pay you for 40 hours a week. You are typically able to start a profitable side project in your own time.
Not to mention if you don’t answer a pager at 3AM when you’re on call
On call should be optional and paid accordingly. It should not be a part of the job, because not everyone is fit to do it (physically, mentally, family-wise, or otherwise).
Incentivize people to take on-call time and those who are fit will take it.
Incentivize people to take on-call time and those who are fit will take it.
I don’t think this is right: people who can’t do it shouldn’t be expected to, but software developers should support their application in production so that, if it’s hard to manage, they have an incentive to fix that problems: throwing code over the wall for an operations team to deal with is a clear case of externalizing negatives.
To some extent a good faith effort is in order, but someone who is perfectly capable of doing 99% of the job shouldn't be expected to respond to things at 3am unless they willingly do so for extra pay.
I for one am perfectly capable of advanced software engineering work but I am NOT capable of compromising my sleep without causing serious heart arrythmias. Some other person might have to deal with a baby. Some other person might sleep early and do meditation at that hour because it helps prevent panic attacks during the day. Everyone is different, and personal time and rest time should be respected. There is so much behind the curtain of off-work time that employers don't see, and don't need to see, they just need to respect that time.
I for one am perfectly capable of advanced software engineering work but I am NOT capable of compromising my sleep without causing serious heart arrythmias. Some other person might have to deal with a baby. Some other person might sleep early and do meditation at that hour because it helps prevent panic attacks during the day. Everyone is different, and personal time and rest time should be respected. There is so much behind the curtain of off-work time that employers don't see, and don't need to see, they just need to respect that time.
In my experience this isn't a very good take, I've been woke up 50+ times in a 7 night span of on call, that fucking incentivized me to fix the issues. But that doesn't FUCK ALL to the product/sales people that actually direct where resources are spent. If the on call people ACTUALLY get to work on the on call issues, I think on call can work.
But in my experience, every single place I've worked, has had insane on call hours. And you were ALWAYS expected to do your normal work on top of the on call hours and you were NEVER given time to fix the issue that woke you up in the middle of the night.
Until the actually engineers/developers are in charge of their own schedules on call shifts will be fucking bullshit.
But in my experience, every single place I've worked, has had insane on call hours. And you were ALWAYS expected to do your normal work on top of the on call hours and you were NEVER given time to fix the issue that woke you up in the middle of the night.
Until the actually engineers/developers are in charge of their own schedules on call shifts will be fucking bullshit.
On call could be part of the job. If someone isn't fit to do it then they should take some other job.
I think for some jobs it makes sense to have on-call as part of the job description, but it's heavily overused. If there isn't imminent danger I don't think it should be ever required to force someone to compromise rest.
If it's just a question of product uptime then you should have enough people and pay people extra to be on-call. And don't deploy things at 5pm on a Friday.
If it's just a question of product uptime then you should have enough people and pay people extra to be on-call. And don't deploy things at 5pm on a Friday.
No, they don’t. Otherwise you’d be making under minimum wage if you were salaried and making less than $90k.
> Otherwise you’d be making under minimum wage if you were salaried and making less than $90k.
No, because if you have a $90k salary and job duties that qualify for wage and hour exemption under FLSA and any applicable state labor law at that salary, then, there is no minimum hourly wage.
That’s what it means to be exempt from wage and hour rules.
For FLSA, “computer related” work is exempt at a salary of just over $35k.
No, because if you have a $90k salary and job duties that qualify for wage and hour exemption under FLSA and any applicable state labor law at that salary, then, there is no minimum hourly wage.
That’s what it means to be exempt from wage and hour rules.
For FLSA, “computer related” work is exempt at a salary of just over $35k.
TIL!
True in one sense...
MY current job has me on "salary" but they require me to work 40 hours a week... and have a time clocking program.
They aren't willing to pay me overtime even when I am contacted (with urgency) on the weekends and after hours...
MY current job has me on "salary" but they require me to work 40 hours a week... and have a time clocking program.
They aren't willing to pay me overtime even when I am contacted (with urgency) on the weekends and after hours...
Compared to a lot of countries, American tech people do make that amount of money. A factor of three (24/8) is not unheard of for the same role when you compare American and European salaries.
> "Then pay me for 24 hours a day."
That’s what a combination of salaried employment with pay and job duties qualifying for FLSA exemption is, in effect.
That’s what a combination of salaried employment with pay and job duties qualifying for FLSA exemption is, in effect.
Sounds like a statement that would constitute a violation of worker's rights in many countries.
IF that reply is genuine it’s scary. Sounds more like a cult than a job.
I suspect this is driven less by an overpossessive engineering management team than a legal team. I'd love to know more about what general counsel is afraid of since I know a lot of people under the same restriction and it meshes with the story Spoolsky tells[1] on side projects:
> Because they might try to take an investment, and the investor would say, “prove to me that you’re not going to get sued by some disgruntled ex-employee who claims to have invented the things that you’re selling.” The company wants to be able to pull out a list of all current and past employees, and show a contract from every single one of them assigning inventions to the company.
[1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
> Because they might try to take an investment, and the investor would say, “prove to me that you’re not going to get sued by some disgruntled ex-employee who claims to have invented the things that you’re selling.” The company wants to be able to pull out a list of all current and past employees, and show a contract from every single one of them assigning inventions to the company.
[1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
Thats not legal in California.
Non competes are illegal in California. But while you are employed by a company I believe that most contracts require that even outside of work the company owns your IP unless otherwise stated - that's why there's a bit in your contract where you can specify prior inventions and whatnot, I believe.
Every company I've worked for has had it this way.
Every company I've worked for has had it this way.
> most contracts require that even outside of work the company owns your IP unless otherwise stated
Assuming the outside work was performed on the employee's own time/equipment and doesn't compete with the employer's business, such contracts would be unenforceable in California. See section 2870 of the California Labor Code: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
Assuming the outside work was performed on the employee's own time/equipment and doesn't compete with the employer's business, such contracts would be unenforceable in California. See section 2870 of the California Labor Code: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
> Assuming the outside work was performed on the employee's own time/equipment and doesn't compete with the employer's business
The rule actually encompasses more than simple competition, but in any case work on OS components for an alternative (and therefore competing) OS for the employer’s hardware for which they also sell proprietary OS software does compete with the employer’s business, so... (The particular thing the employee was denied permission to work on seems to be VNIC for IBM Power)
The rule actually encompasses more than simple competition, but in any case work on OS components for an alternative (and therefore competing) OS for the employer’s hardware for which they also sell proprietary OS software does compete with the employer’s business, so... (The particular thing the employee was denied permission to work on seems to be VNIC for IBM Power)
Yeah, this is the loophole in the law: if you work for a big company, there are very few areas that meet the criteria specified in the law.
> Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer’s equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for those inventions that either:
> (1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer or ...
I am not a lawyer, but I think it would not be unreasonable to believe that work on the kernel would be related to IBM's business (like RedHat).
Its not just that it doesn't compete with the employer's business but if it is related to the employer's business.
Furthermore, while the own time/equipment is there, there is also trade secret information mentioned beyond the time and equipment constraint.
> (1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer or ...
I am not a lawyer, but I think it would not be unreasonable to believe that work on the kernel would be related to IBM's business (like RedHat).
Its not just that it doesn't compete with the employer's business but if it is related to the employer's business.
Furthermore, while the own time/equipment is there, there is also trade secret information mentioned beyond the time and equipment constraint.
Here it's not just work on the kernel, but work on the kernel on a driver for IBM hardware that two other IBM employees maintain, and that the employee in question was -also- previously a contributor to during work hours.
Yep, that "employer's business" part is relevant here. The person in question is writing a kernel driver for an IBM hardware while being an IBM employee. IANAL but I'm pretty sure that means "Employer fully owns employee's work" even in California.
Doesn’t own the work but they can be terminated and even charged with a crime if they were misappropriating trade secrets.
Oh yeah, true true. You'll want to avoid using any company time, equipment (including the network), code, etc. and that should cover you, i think, but only so long as your work doesn't "compete" with your employers iirc.
I work for a small (barely 2 digit people) open source shop and we don't have it that way, but that's probably because we're so small...
Funnily enough I release some of my work under BSD-style licenses while company stuff is all GPL :D
[2 sidenotes though: 1) I'm in the EU, and 2) a previous job, working on the very exact same open source project, had a clause like that.]
Funnily enough I release some of my work under BSD-style licenses while company stuff is all GPL :D
[2 sidenotes though: 1) I'm in the EU, and 2) a previous job, working on the very exact same open source project, had a clause like that.]
What exactly do you mean?
I believe California employment law is pretty pro-employee. Mostly if you develop something in your spare time, without using company resources in any way, it is yours.
I think that's why there are lots of startups in california.
In other states, employers in some cases can own everything, up to and including ideas in your head.
I don't know an example state that is the other side of the coin, pro-employer, but maybe texas? (uneducated guess)
I think that's why there are lots of startups in california.
In other states, employers in some cases can own everything, up to and including ideas in your head.
I don't know an example state that is the other side of the coin, pro-employer, but maybe texas? (uneducated guess)
This provision is useless if you work for a large company, because it carves out an exception for anything that could be related to your employer’s business.
In practice it means at most they should've called him on the phone and not leave an email trail. You do what your boss wants, or you're out of a job. Outside California and inside California.
I mean, strictly speaking that's true, right?
I happen to be an IBM employee. I don't WORK 24x7 (well, not most weeks... ;), but "an IBM employee" is a state flag permanently assigned to me until explicitly changed:). I don't even feel it's debatable from a strictly semantic point of view. (I am many other things as well, FWIW:)
Hopefully starting from point of agreement, if at 9pm I log on to hacker news and start singing praises to IBM or complaining about its work or musing on its share price or revealing insider information, it would be a relevant disclosable piece of information that "I'm an IBM employee", no?
I happen to be an IBM employee. I don't WORK 24x7 (well, not most weeks... ;), but "an IBM employee" is a state flag permanently assigned to me until explicitly changed:). I don't even feel it's debatable from a strictly semantic point of view. (I am many other things as well, FWIW:)
Hopefully starting from point of agreement, if at 9pm I log on to hacker news and start singing praises to IBM or complaining about its work or musing on its share price or revealing insider information, it would be a relevant disclosable piece of information that "I'm an IBM employee", no?
This is an IBM-maintained driver for an IBM-owned architecture.
You are subject to IBM trade secret law 100% of the time. Just because you only get paid for 8 hours of work a day doesn't mean you can use your 9th hour to tell people all about trade secrets. You are, in fact, paid to adhere to the terms of your employment contract 24/7.
You are subject to IBM trade secret law 100% of the time. Just because you only get paid for 8 hours of work a day doesn't mean you can use your 9th hour to tell people all about trade secrets. You are, in fact, paid to adhere to the terms of your employment contract 24/7.
Contract with IBM is never a "law".
As it has been noted, labour laws are always above the contracts.
If the employee is working for IBM on a visa, it may be more than salary at risk.
Hopefully he gets to be an IBM employee 0% of the time and work somewhere else where his contributions to OSS would be appreciated. And IBM can continue to kick themselves at losing a contributor and wonder why they're just a consulting firm now.
To not act contrary to the interests of your employer (unless, I suppose you are whistle-blowing on some illegal activity...) is a universally expected norm, no?
He's also not allowed to use his personal Gmail account for hobbies.
The people in charge are sociopaths.
The people in charge are sociopaths.
That sounds a lot more like “you are not allowed to use your personal email address for the same things you work on and call it a hobby”. Not a great conversation but it sounds like what happens when someone tries to rules-lawyer a large corporation which has tons of real lawyers and experience with, for example, patent and other IP lawsuits.
[deleted]
Never work for IBM. Got it.
It's a big company, bound to have a few dicks here and there. And you hear about them. Because why'd you hear about the rest?
I'd be inclined to agree (my own workplace has some managers that are pretty rough but I wouldn't call it a shitty place to work), except if this manager is quoting "IBM policy", then it's probably not just the manager.
Right, such few damn dicks also happened to keep active relations with the Third Reich supporting the logistics of the concentration camps.
Never a company policy, just those few bad people giving it a bad name...
Never a company policy, just those few bad people giving it a bad name...
Did you just "literally Hitler"-ed this thread? Yes, you did. Honestly, bringing Hitler up makes a request like "stop using your personal email on this project" seem super innocent by comparison. Congrats you made the current dicks at IBM look good.
>a few dicks
here is one of them https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-8ae28677533d6d71a84fd7...
here is one of them https://qph.fs.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-8ae28677533d6d71a84fd7...
Because being "100% employee" and having no free time is SO MUCH FREEDOM and as it is already public knowledge, "work sets you free".
But, i know, those few dicks. Not. The. Company.
But, i know, those few dicks. Not. The. Company.
Not sure if you realize how much cringe you're spreading.
[deleted]
I imagine there's a few RedHat folks pondering things now.
I doubt it, it is common practice for us to use personal e-mail addresses for open source contributions (since many of us have pre-existing community involvement before working for Red Hat). And we remain culturally distinct from IBM.
As a side note, really often we get asked to measure our open-source contributions, or get measured by some sort of analysis of a project. It is always an under-estimate because of all the non-redhat.com accounts that we use.
As a side note, really often we get asked to measure our open-source contributions, or get measured by some sort of analysis of a project. It is always an under-estimate because of all the non-redhat.com accounts that we use.
Considering how the discussion is developing I think the title should be modified to reflect the content of the link better. It is not clear from the source that the title is necessarily accurate and imposes what may be a misleading interpretation of the content.
Before you rail on how wrong this is for a company to do, please read this article by Joel on the subject.
This is a super difficult topic for corporations that most don't realize and the article below walks through those dynamics.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
This is a super difficult topic for corporations that most don't realize and the article below walks through those dynamics.
https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr...
I don't understand that article at all. I see no weird dynamics. The company owns the work they pay me for, nothing else. In the games example they either paid for the game ideas or they did not. If the worker provided them that's basically admitting to it being done as part of work. Trying to protect against this small ambiguity by owning all my work is the wrong way to go about it.
That was my initial reaction. If the employer's sole concern is to avoid using IP they don't have full rights to, then they can just require me sign over rights to my IP which I used in work projects.
That approach does create more complications though. What if the employee claims that they weren't paid for the game idea and didn't present it to the company, rather that a coworker learned about it off hours and "stole" it[1]. Or if an employee writes some software entirely during off-hours, but incorporates the company's trade secrets or patent pending ideas into that software. To avoid this, the company now has to document that rights for each work was transferred from employee to employer, and it has to document what is and isn't considered a trade secret, so the employee knows what information they learned at work they are and aren't allowed to use in side projects. From the employer's perspective it is much easier and safer to make the default that all IP rights are assigned to employer, and then document any exceptions they might grant.
In other words ideas (patents, trade secrets) are much messier than works (copyright, physical objects) when it comes to employee / employer contract.
[1] Also "game idea" was a poor example because game concepts/rules are not covered by patents or copyright, just trade secrets prior to publishing, but I'll continue his example as if they were.
That approach does create more complications though. What if the employee claims that they weren't paid for the game idea and didn't present it to the company, rather that a coworker learned about it off hours and "stole" it[1]. Or if an employee writes some software entirely during off-hours, but incorporates the company's trade secrets or patent pending ideas into that software. To avoid this, the company now has to document that rights for each work was transferred from employee to employer, and it has to document what is and isn't considered a trade secret, so the employee knows what information they learned at work they are and aren't allowed to use in side projects. From the employer's perspective it is much easier and safer to make the default that all IP rights are assigned to employer, and then document any exceptions they might grant.
In other words ideas (patents, trade secrets) are much messier than works (copyright, physical objects) when it comes to employee / employer contract.
[1] Also "game idea" was a poor example because game concepts/rules are not covered by patents or copyright, just trade secrets prior to publishing, but I'll continue his example as if they were.
> This is a super difficult topic for corporations that most don't realize and the article below walks through those dynamics.
What is difficult about this case? Guy is not "designing games" or doing some other nebulous highly-creative work, he just wanted to hack the driver in his spare time.
What is difficult about this case? Guy is not "designing games" or doing some other nebulous highly-creative work, he just wanted to hack the driver in his spare time.
This is also what Google suggests:
> Please associate your commit with your google.com email unless: - You have a history of contributing to the repo under a different email before your employment at Google Source: https://opensource.google/docs/patching/
> The release process applies to all types of projects: personal (at home), 20%, and new Google open source releases that aren’t part of and following the release process of an already-established Google open source project (like Chromium or Android). Source: https://opensource.google/docs/releasing/#patching
It’s a bit less strict, but signing work that I’m doing after job with my job e-mail doesn’t sound fair.
> Please associate your commit with your google.com email unless: - You have a history of contributing to the repo under a different email before your employment at Google Source: https://opensource.google/docs/patching/
> The release process applies to all types of projects: personal (at home), 20%, and new Google open source releases that aren’t part of and following the release process of an already-established Google open source project (like Chromium or Android). Source: https://opensource.google/docs/releasing/#patching
It’s a bit less strict, but signing work that I’m doing after job with my job e-mail doesn’t sound fair.
Agree, this sounds like no less of an attempt to own the employee's time, it's just better at recognizing the value of open-source contribution to Alphabet's bottom line.
[deleted]
If he's an IBM employee 100% of the time, then I expect he's only getting paid for 33+1/3 % of his workday. I hope he demands the other 66+2/3 %, granting, of course, a 1 time exception on lack of payment to make this change.
Ooh. I forgot weekends.
Ooh. I forgot weekends.
He's probably salaried, not hourly
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
No. No one sells their soul to the company store anymore. This IBM manager is living in the past.
No. No one sells their soul to the company store anymore. This IBM manager is living in the past.
Talking to old-timers, IBM back in the old days used to be very much like this.
Anything more public than reading a lesson in church services or maybe being a scoutmaster was viewed as very suspect and subject to highly manipulative pushback.
Anything more public than reading a lesson in church services or maybe being a scoutmaster was viewed as very suspect and subject to highly manipulative pushback.
This feels like there's a lot of context missing. Does anyone know anything more about this story?
This contributor was specifically listed as a reviewer on the "IBM Power SRIOV Virtual NIC Device Driver", and it sounds like the order (from a manager?) was specifically to do with contributing to this specific VNIC driver.
This contributor was specifically listed as a reviewer on the "IBM Power SRIOV Virtual NIC Device Driver", and it sounds like the order (from a manager?) was specifically to do with contributing to this specific VNIC driver.
They'd have to be paying 4.2x as much in salary if they want me 24/7.
Re: the various comments here relating to IP ownership for work performed outside of office hours; what state are they in, etc --- this seems to be quite another thing than "dude works on his side gig in the evening" because it appears that they're actively working against the interests of their employer (and not just "greater IBM", but the specific part of IBM they work in), and have already argued against instructions to cease doing so.
IBM is understandably gun shy about keeping a tight rein on Linux participation given the have been sued for the decade plus over misappropriating Linux code into their code.
Having done license clearance there "blue washing" in the vernacular, I know they are pretty committed to toeing the line when it comes to keeping IP rights clarified and identified and not mixed up. :-)
Having done license clearance there "blue washing" in the vernacular, I know they are pretty committed to toeing the line when it comes to keeping IP rights clarified and identified and not mixed up. :-)
I have never had a positive experience with anything related to IBM. Granted, my experience has been few and far between, but I'm guessing that's a good thing.
Another data point, my dad worked as a tech from IBM for many, many years.
He’s never had a positive experience either for himself or the customers he did work for.
IBM tried to shaft their customers at every possible point and the only reason IBM held to their contracts is because he wouldn’t lie for them and no one else was willing to take responsibility.
He’s never had a positive experience either for himself or the customers he did work for.
IBM tried to shaft their customers at every possible point and the only reason IBM held to their contracts is because he wouldn’t lie for them and no one else was willing to take responsibility.
Why would IBM not want someone working on VNIC specifically?
That isn't the issue... you can see two other maintainers listed that have IBM email addresses.... this seems to be about wanting the open source work associated with IBM, their employer, rather than their personal email. If they are paid to work on open source, it makes sense they would want it tied to an IBM email. I think the wording was saying "you are employed to work on this open source project, so all your work on this open source project should be tied to your IBM identity, no matter when that work is done. This seems normal for salaried employees... the general rule is that since you don't have set hours, you can't spend your off time "competing" against your employer.... normally that means I can't run a side business selling analytics products if my day job is working for an analytics company, but it makes sense that if your salaried job is this specific open source work that they would want all contributions to it made in the company name.
Caveat: you may do this if you are planning on starting a new business.
(Disclaimer: not a lawyer.)
(Disclaimer: not a lawyer.)
> this seems to be about wanting the open source work associated with IBM, their employer, rather than their personal email.
In this case, the employee had been part of the team maintaining it at IBM in an official capacity... and then IBM apparently decided they did not want him to work with that team anymore. In turn, he changed the maintainers file to point to his personal email address, and the managers involved were predictably not amused.
In this case, the employee had been part of the team maintaining it at IBM in an official capacity... and then IBM apparently decided they did not want him to work with that team anymore. In turn, he changed the maintainers file to point to his personal email address, and the managers involved were predictably not amused.
No, the manager obviously talking about "hobby" email and being 24h/day employee (slave) so this has nothing to do with the day work of the certain programmer.
The real question is Linus OK with the project being separate feuds with different (corporate) rules instead of a single community
In Spain the employer must clearly state in the payroll they are paying for exclusivity. If not, even with a signing a contract saying so, it’s illegal.
FWIW, this person:
David S. Miller <[email protected]>
is employed by Red Hat, which is a part of IBM.
David S. Miller <[email protected]>
is employed by Red Hat, which is a part of IBM.
Shameful and regressive corporate tactics. This is part of the main kernel source code, not some private module.
This is obviously against any sense of openness and inclusive development process. If a certain person has something to offer that is technically correct, must be able to do so in any secure way he wants.
This is plain face control.
This is plain face control.
I've had contracts presented to me from companies like this, and I usually just cross those bit out. I expect them to come back with some alternative, surprisingly some don't and just leave the bit out - which often removes the IP bit totally. Always gives me a chuckle, the problem with large companies is they have a whole legal team which has to justify their existence so they make these outlandish clauses. The people you're dealing with don't care they just have work to do. The trouble is when things go wrong and legal gets involved and all the crazy clauses become active, like probably happened here.
I've had so many times the people I'm dealing with say 'oh don't worry about that bit' its just standard, my reply is always oh well lets cross it out - some do, some don't. If they don't then red flags start flying.
(IANAL)
I've had so many times the people I'm dealing with say 'oh don't worry about that bit' its just standard, my reply is always oh well lets cross it out - some do, some don't. If they don't then red flags start flying.
(IANAL)
Hey, on https://www.remotehub.com/services/details/freelance-illustr..., you instantly share your data with thousands of employers and that can save you the hassle of finding a job yourself. Many employers are looking for candidates precisely by their resume on various sources. Such sites with advertisements must be carefully filtered and selected as this site must be reliable.
Seems kind of weird to block someone from doing something as an employee , when that thing isn’t illegal or actively harming the company in any way. Are they saying employees aren’t allowed to have hobbies ?
being someone's employee 100% of the time sounds like slavery
"You are our slave, 100% of the time."
Reading "You are an IBM employee 100% of the time" guarantees that I will be an IBM employee 0% of the time.
Anyone surprised by this should check with the IP agreement they signed with their own company - I bet it would also forbid this. Generally anything related to work you do as an employee can be considered IP owned by the company.
Sounds like a good time to give them the finger and find a new job. If you're a regular contributor to the kernel you no doubt have the skills to find a better circumstance that working for a dinosaur.
The real takeaway from this is if you want to work on FOSS on your own time, without retribution from your manager, don't work at IBM.
As IBM is supposed to be a huge supporter of FOSS, this is a total disappointment.
As IBM is supposed to be a huge supporter of FOSS, this is a total disappointment.
[deleted]
Adding IBM to my list of "never to work there" companies
It's IBM. It's like saying "Adding poop to my list of never-eat-this".
Flagged. Someone posted an anonymous quote perhaps after a heated private conversation. Article submitted by a throwaway. Comments are mostly flamdbait speculation.
So if you're an IBM employee, you're allowed to work on the Linux kernel, but only if that is designated as part of your job function. Interesting...
It's not the Linux kernel as a whole that's at issue, it's an IBM driver within the kernel. If they wanted to work on some unrelated part of the kernel it doesn't sound like that'd be an issue.
That does make more sense. IBM probably has a dedicated team of engineers working on that driver, and they also have the power to keep unrelated employees from working on it, and so they will do so (in order to keep the driver's development going through the official chain of command, and not having to loop in some random employee in another group).
Since when parts of the kernel are governed differently than other parts?
It is code _within_ the official kernel, not some module in a dark alley git server at IBM.
Anyone smart enough to do kernel work can get jobs many places that don't have this type of toxic culture.
There must be some serious Stockholm Syndrome going on.
There must be some serious Stockholm Syndrome going on.
"You are an IBM employee 100% of the time."
The only way I could interpret this is "You are an IBM slave 100% of the time."
Sorry state of corporations.
The only way I could interpret this is "You are an IBM slave 100% of the time."
Sorry state of corporations.
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
As a German, this just amazes me, and not in a positive way. This would not fly here at all.
As a German, this just amazes me, and not in a positive way. This would not fly here at all.
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
This is one reason I’m a contractor and not an employee. Another big reason is way better money.
This is one reason I’m a contractor and not an employee. Another big reason is way better money.
This company owns Red Hat.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Guess who I will NEVER work for.
Is this a normal way of treating your employees in the US?
If IBM pays him to work on Linux kernel full time. Then I don't see anything abnormal.
Would the moonlighting clause apply here if the employee happened to be a CA resident?
Nope, because the contributions in question are to IBM's VNIC driver, and until 3 days ago this employee was working on this project in an official capacity. The employer is expressly allowed to claim ownership of work that relates to the employment, which this did.
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time
So he should demand 100% wage for 24 hours per day.
So he should demand 100% wage for 24 hours per day.
Surprisingly tone deaf email.
> You are an IBM employee 100% of the time.
Almost all decent software companies have some kind of allowance for personal contribution to free software. IBM can't possibly be paying enough to attract people from these other places.
Almost all decent software companies have some kind of allowance for personal contribution to free software. IBM can't possibly be paying enough to attract people from these other places.
Yeah the scale of contribution from folks at big tech companies who of all people probably could come up with all sorts of hypothetical possible conflicts... and yet they don't seem to happen.
Really hard to understand how IBM somehow has to have such rules, but everyone else has contributing employees with no problems...
Really hard to understand how IBM somehow has to have such rules, but everyone else has contributing employees with no problems...
If anyone ever spoke to me like that, I would quit.
Lovely. And IBM's subsidiary RedHat are the people who pushed through the dominance of SystemD in the Linux Software Stack.
I grant you...
What a creepy sounding person. Probably a nightmare to work for (because make no mistake, you’re not working with someone like this).
Probably a sociopath and definitely has a god complex.
What a creepy sounding person. Probably a nightmare to work for (because make no mistake, you’re not working with someone like this).
Probably a sociopath and definitely has a god complex.
I understand the reaction (I'm sure many of us had something similar), but at the same time the flags on this comment and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26871185 are appropriate because those posts broke the site guidelines—for example the ones about being kind, not calling names, and assuming good faith: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
The key is to understand why the guidelines are that way. It's not that we necessarily owe better to creepy-sounding persons, sociopaths, or clowns (or persons who we're perceiving that way based on a few words we're reading online). It's that we owe better to the community we're participating in. The ecosystem here is fragile and easily poisoned, and since we all want to have a place that's actually interesting, our first duty is to take care of it.
The key is to understand why the guidelines are that way. It's not that we necessarily owe better to creepy-sounding persons, sociopaths, or clowns (or persons who we're perceiving that way based on a few words we're reading online). It's that we owe better to the community we're participating in. The ecosystem here is fragile and easily poisoned, and since we all want to have a place that's actually interesting, our first duty is to take care of it.
That sounds a lot of info you managed to extrapolate from this little context.
1996(4)
I sincerely hope this person is looking for a new, less abusive job in the late stage dystopian capitalist hellscape we exist in.
[flagged]
Would you please stop posting in the flamewar style to HN and using HN for ideological battle? You've been breaking the site guidelines a ton. We ban accounts that do that, and need you to fix this if you want to keep posting here. Please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on.
[flagged]
Please don't break the site guidelines yourself, no matter how bad another comment is or you feel it is.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
who works for ibm now a days.
Another of the many reasons to not work for IBM, if its historical support of genocidal regimes wasn’t enough.
At least the dev in question handled it well.
That's a matter for interpretation. Including the internal email message in the commit might not be received favourably by IBM.
This implies that handling it well is aligned with keeping ones job. I don't agree with that mindset myself. I'd say they handled it poorly. But, then, both of us are at least half wrong regardless of which one is right.
In the real world no one cares about the tiny battle you're setting yourself up for in order to prove yourself. You'd just lose your job, and have nothing to show up for it.
This is simply illegal. I am surprised at how the HN community is acquiescing to this throwback claim and isn't challenging it with righteous indignation. It crosses numerous legal, ethical and historic boundaries and should deeply taint the IBM brand for anyone reading it.