Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!think!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hpda!hpcuhb!hpcilzb!tedj From: tedj@hpcilzb.HP.COM (Ted Johnson) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer Subject: Re: Work for Hire contracts Message-ID: <730058@hpcilzb.HP.COM> Date: 15 Aug 88 16:41:03 GMT References: <25638@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Organization: HP Design Tech Center - Santa Clara, CA Lines: 44 Point #1: >Hold out for at least as good terms as the lawyers >who write the contracts we are expected to sign! Unfortunately, I don't think that it is that easy, because lawyers have an effective "union", software people don't. So software people end up taking more shit. (I *hate* unions though!) Point #2: >Many contract programmers now work on a "Work for >Hire" basis, The definition of "Work for Hire" means >that all writings produced within the scope of our >employment are owned by our employers. "Work for > >[stuff deleted] > >knowledge that comprise our respective fields. Both >sell complete documents to companies, contracts in >one case, programs in the other. Both build their >personal experience, embodied in the components that >make up the complete works. Only the lawyer retains >the right to use those components in future works. Can contract-programmer-hiring companies really make this stick? Lets say I work for company A and write a calendar program. I leave them all the source, and promise never to sell it to anyone else. Then I work for company B and write a calendar program. If anyone gives me flak over their similiar "look and feel", I could say that I started over from scratch, but that since I only have the one brain, I did it the same way the second time! Lets get serious though. How far can they take this? If I write an abs(x) function for one company, does that mean that I can't ever ever use this piece of code again????!!!! -Ted