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Reporting on OSCON 2016
- mark_l_watson 10y agoHer talk about modifying contracts is important. I once had the president of a company I was going to consult for tell me that he liked that I made small changes to our contract. As a lawyer, he said it was difficult to respect people who just signed a contract with no negotiation. I donate a little money automatically each month to the Software Conservancy. Like supporting FSF, EFF, ACLU, etc., it makes sense to spend a little money to push back against the economic royalty. I view libre software as a positive political force in addition to making sense in technical and business life.
- YZF 10y agoBut reviewing and approving a modification to the contract may be time consuming and expensive. Not to mention the difficulty of having different variations on the same contract and needing to figure out which one applies to which situation. I don't really see how making changes to standard contracts is going to work for most people. The "it's standard and I don't have authority to change it" is a very strong negotiation position. Unless you're really OK with walking away unless the change is made you have no leverage.
- mark_l_watson 10y agoTrue, you do have to be willing to walk away. However, so many contracts are boilerplate with really pro-company, anti-worker clauses that it often makes sense to push back a little.
- ashitlerferad 10y agoShe mentioned in the talk that at the point where you are reviewing a contract, the company has already decided to hire you, so you are the one with the power at this point and definitely have the ability to negotiate your contract. This was covered well in the recent LWN article about this talk (needs a subscription, will be public 2 weeks after publication): https://lwn.net/Articles/688451/ https://lwn.net/Articles/688451/