Xref: utzoo comp.sys.mac.programmer:2080 comp.software-eng:752 Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsd!ucsdhub!sdsu!roetzhei From: roetzhei@sdsu.UUCP (William Roetzheim) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer,comp.software-eng Subject: Re: Work for Hire contracts Message-ID: <3110@sdsu.UUCP> Date: 15 Aug 88 21:14:12 GMT References: <496@hudson.acc.virginia.edu> <25636@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <25638@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> Reply-To: roetzhei@sdsu.UCSD.EDU (William Roetzheim) Organization: San Diego State University, Math/Sciences Dept. Lines: 30 In article <25638@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster) writes: >An Open Letter to Contract Programmers. > >Hire" is completely unfair. Think twice before you >sign any "work for hire" contract, and better yet, >refuse to sign. In the broad sense Phillip Oster uses in looking at this problem, his arguments do not seem to make sense to me. The bulk of his argument involves comparing programming to the 'work' (I use the term loosly :-) ) lawyers do. This comparison does not make much sense. It would be much more logical to compare programming to hardware engineering or research and development. In both of these areas, the company is exposing the employee to corporate trade secrets, strategies, etc. and is paying for what is primarily creative effort. Most people agree that R&D patents, copyrights, trade processes, schematics, etc. developed by an employee on company time belong to the company. Why should software be any different? I do, however, agree with Phillip if we restrict the argument a bit. I believe that the company 'owns' everything produced on company time. This means that programmers can not code on company time and then take the code (or fragments of the code) home to use for other purposes. I also believe that knowledge entrusted to an employee by the company to do his/her work belongs to the company and can not be used for personal gain. On the other hand, I believe that a programmer (or anyone else) has the right to use his/her talents and skills to produce code/algorithms/etc. on his or her own time, and that the company has no rights to these items. Some States (CA is one) have laws which say basically the same thing. WHR