3 ms·

What about NDAs and in-house projects? I have contributed to many projects in the past years that are not publicly available, not even as a product/service bec

What about NDAs and in-house projects? I have contributed to many projects in the past years that are not publicly available, not even as a product/service because they are, for example, DevOps tools or improvements to servers or a development/management/sale process. My GitHub account is mostly personal projects and nothing — except for a couple of them — are used in production. It is very difficult to show your value as an active contributor to open-source projects if your contributions cannot be public.

thinkingemote 9y ago
I think even more people will be affected by IP clauses in their work contracts which state that any work they do even outside on their own time is the property of the company they work for. many cannot do any open source work at all. Some need to get explicit and lengthy approval from HR, managers etc. in short, most in companies cannot easily build up a personal github profile.
- VLM 9y ago
  The marketplace is too scattered to understand, seeing as its common knowledge that most devs can't fizzbuzz on command, and also everyone knows all interviews are piles of buzzwords surrounded by infinite whiteboard algo discussions. Given that disorder in the marketplace, you might be worried they're asking for an entire tech startup, but they might be happy with little more than a personal fizzbuzz hello-world analogy. If your employer were jerks enough to demand ownership of your fizzbuzz-alike, you could write another in a day or two. Something more like a weekly homework assignment from school, and less like a PHD thesis.
Others 9y ago
Not to be rude, but why do you think that contributions to in-house/closed-source projects should count as contributions to open source? By definition, if you contribute to an open source project, you should be able to point to the public code you wrote. What you're describing is basically previous work experience (which is already on your resume).
- guessmyname 9y ago
  I am talking about contributions to open-source projects under the name of the employer. I have signed NDAs with clauses that state that as an employer I am responsible for the maintenance of the internal systems including the bug fixes to whatever project the system depends on, but later there are clauses that prevent me from identifying myself as an individual contributor to these open-source projects, I have to use a company-provided account.
  - dasmoth 9y ago
    Was a justification given for this? The company doesn't seem to be gaining from keeping the identity of the contributors secret (if they wanted to mask the fact that they were using a particular piece of OSS I could kind-of understand that -- but doesn't seem to be the case here). Is it really as spiteful as "we don't want you to gain personal credit for work we're paying for"?
    - guessmyname 9y ago
      I can only speculate about the justification for these clauses. The contract was written by a group of 3rd-party lawyers who had little to none knowledge about the open-source community. My only guess is that they wanted the contributions to be tied to the company's name to increase their visibility, as in — "We [the company] contribute to X project(s); love us!" — putting myself in the shows of these lawyers, if an employee leaves, their contributions will stop being tied to the company and they will lose some visibility, that is the only reason I can think of right now. Your guess about "we pay you; credit is for us" also makes sense, they are the company's lawyers after all, they are not working to protect my rights but the company, so I didn't think too much about it when I signed, later I regretted my decision and quit.

thinkingemote 9y ago

I think even more people will be affected by IP clauses in their work contracts which state that any work they do even outside on their own time is the property of the company they work for. many cannot do any open source work at all. Some need to get explicit and lengthy approval from HR, managers etc. in short, most in companies cannot easily build up a personal github profile.

VLM 9y ago
The marketplace is too scattered to understand, seeing as its common knowledge that most devs can't fizzbuzz on command, and also everyone knows all interviews are piles of buzzwords surrounded by infinite whiteboard algo discussions. Given that disorder in the marketplace, you might be worried they're asking for an entire tech startup, but they might be happy with little more than a personal fizzbuzz hello-world analogy. If your employer were jerks enough to demand ownership of your fizzbuzz-alike, you could write another in a day or two. Something more like a weekly homework assignment from school, and less like a PHD thesis.

Others 9y ago

Not to be rude, but why do you think that contributions to in-house/closed-source projects should count as contributions to open source? By definition, if you contribute to an open source project, you should be able to point to the public code you wrote. What you're describing is basically previous work experience (which is already on your resume).

guessmyname 9y ago
I am talking about contributions to open-source projects under the name of the employer. I have signed NDAs with clauses that state that as an employer I am responsible for the maintenance of the internal systems including the bug fixes to whatever project the system depends on, but later there are clauses that prevent me from identifying myself as an individual contributor to these open-source projects, I have to use a company-provided account.
- dasmoth 9y ago
  Was a justification given for this? The company doesn't seem to be gaining from keeping the identity of the contributors secret (if they wanted to mask the fact that they were using a particular piece of OSS I could kind-of understand that -- but doesn't seem to be the case here). Is it really as spiteful as "we don't want you to gain personal credit for work we're paying for"?
  - guessmyname 9y ago
    I can only speculate about the justification for these clauses. The contract was written by a group of 3rd-party lawyers who had little to none knowledge about the open-source community. My only guess is that they wanted the contributions to be tied to the company's name to increase their visibility, as in — "We [the company] contribute to X project(s); love us!" — putting myself in the shows of these lawyers, if an employee leaves, their contributions will stop being tied to the company and they will lose some visibility, that is the only reason I can think of right now. Your guess about "we pay you; credit is for us" also makes sense, they are the company's lawyers after all, they are not working to protect my rights but the company, so I didn't think too much about it when I signed, later I regretted my decision and quit.