5 ms·

First of all, as far as I am aware, Google has been a very friendly contributor to open source, releasing lots and lots of high quality code, including some rea

by earl 16y ago

First of all, as far as I am aware, Google has been a very friendly contributor to open source, releasing lots and lots of high quality code, including some really cool stuff that isn't available elsewhere such as GWT or Guice. I'm strongly inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. Further, reread Chris' first sentence. This isn't just Google being jerks; their policy stems at least in part from CA law. So, under California law, which is probably the most liberal in the United States coving IP, you are prescribed from competing with your employer even on your own time or on your own equipment. This is reinforced in industry employment agreements, including Google's (my employer) Most employers take the position that everything you do in the space is logically competitive. Recognizing that, we, Google, make it very easy to get permission to open source things, but under Google copyright. That said, given their relationship with the web, it's hard to say that any web related tech doesn't compete with them in some fashion. I'd wait for G to actually be dicks before calling them out. Also, being allowed to use 20 percent time to work on this stuff is pretty amazing. I have a bunch of personal projects that I'd love to have a day a week to work on.

kelnos 16y ago
That said, given their relationship with the web, it's hard to say that any web related tech doesn't compete with them in some fashion. ... which is really the problem. Google can claim that anything web-related that an employee of theirs does on their own time to be sufficiently related to their business as to assert ownership. And that's not cool. Just because a company has done good things for the community, it doesn't give them a free pass to do bad things to its employees.
- ori_b 16y ago
  As stated above "We have a process for releasing under your own copyright, but it is not as flexible.". I think that's entirely fair - if you're a Google employee contributing to a project that might potentially compete with Google, I don't see a problem with Google asking you to get permission.
rdtsc 16y ago
But isn't Google a "Don't be evil" company? Such a moral stance should clearly prompt them to either stop taking code ownership from their engineers' weekend projects (I call it stealing), or they should start paying overtime for that code. EDIT: Corrected the corporate motto from "Do no evil" to "Don't be evil".
- nostrademons 16y ago
  Google's corporate motto is "Don't be evil". That's very different from "Do no evil."
  - rdtsc 16y ago
    Thank you for correcting. I don't see how it is that different in practice. Do you mean that there is a loophole, since a company that is "not evil" can clearly "act evil" and still operate according to its principles because of the specific wording of the statement?
    - nostrademons 16y ago
      "Don't be evil" is a statement about your overall behavior. "Do no evil" is a statement about each individual act you commit. They can often be in conflict when your actions have consequences on other actions (i.e. always). In this specific example - yes, I think that claiming ownership over everything your employee does is slightly evil (common practice, though). However, without that legal protection, why would you ever share the rest of your IP with the employee? Why would you ever let them work on anything other than their immediately-assigned job duties? You end up with a culture that's fairly similar to most big companies, where employees are told only what they need to do their jobs, and managers tightly control everything that an employee works on. I'd say that's a far worse outcome than a culture where employees know everything that's going on in the company and have wide latitude to start projects that make things better for users. It's worse for employees, it's worse for users, and ultimately it's worse for the company.
    - cglee 16y ago
      Stated another way: you can do bad things if you have good intentions in the end. eg, break the law to defend human rights, etc.
alextingle 16y ago
This is them being dicks! What are you waiting for - Larry Page to come and take a dump on your lawn??

by earl 16y ago

kelnos 16y ago

That said, given their relationship with the web, it's hard to say that any web related tech doesn't compete with them in some fashion. ... which is really the problem. Google can claim that anything web-related that an employee of theirs does on their own time to be sufficiently related to their business as to assert ownership. And that's not cool. Just because a company has done good things for the community, it doesn't give them a free pass to do bad things to its employees.

ori_b 16y ago
As stated above "We have a process for releasing under your own copyright, but it is not as flexible.". I think that's entirely fair - if you're a Google employee contributing to a project that might potentially compete with Google, I don't see a problem with Google asking you to get permission.

rdtsc 16y ago

But isn't Google a "Don't be evil" company? Such a moral stance should clearly prompt them to either stop taking code ownership from their engineers' weekend projects (I call it stealing), or they should start paying overtime for that code. EDIT: Corrected the corporate motto from "Do no evil" to "Don't be evil".

nostrademons 16y ago
Google's corporate motto is "Don't be evil". That's very different from "Do no evil."
- rdtsc 16y ago
  Thank you for correcting. I don't see how it is that different in practice. Do you mean that there is a loophole, since a company that is "not evil" can clearly "act evil" and still operate according to its principles because of the specific wording of the statement?
  - nostrademons 16y ago
    "Don't be evil" is a statement about your overall behavior. "Do no evil" is a statement about each individual act you commit. They can often be in conflict when your actions have consequences on other actions (i.e. always). In this specific example - yes, I think that claiming ownership over everything your employee does is slightly evil (common practice, though). However, without that legal protection, why would you ever share the rest of your IP with the employee? Why would you ever let them work on anything other than their immediately-assigned job duties? You end up with a culture that's fairly similar to most big companies, where employees are told only what they need to do their jobs, and managers tightly control everything that an employee works on. I'd say that's a far worse outcome than a culture where employees know everything that's going on in the company and have wide latitude to start projects that make things better for users. It's worse for employees, it's worse for users, and ultimately it's worse for the company.
  - cglee 16y ago
    Stated another way: you can do bad things if you have good intentions in the end. eg, break the law to defend human rights, etc.

alextingle 16y ago

This is them being dicks! What are you waiting for - Larry Page to come and take a dump on your lawn??