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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