5 ms·

WTF Apple..?! Is this due to some fear of IP leaking via employees contributing to OSS?

by jtdev 6y ago

bitwize 6y ago
Yes, and it is a legitimate fear. Someone with access to Apple's IP may unintentionally or even inadvertently leak that IP in an open-source project. Say you developed a clever new optimization on the job at Apple. You use the same trick in your open source code, thinking it's no big deal, it's just one small piece of code. But that code is now the property of Apple, and they may consider it more valuable than you do. It may enable, for instance, faster encryption with one of their custom chips. That's an edge they have in the marlet that they might lose were it not for exclusive use of that bit of code. They could lose millions -- meaning they could sue you for millions. In a court of law, it is sufficient to prove that the defendant had access to the infringed work and that their work is substantially similar to the infringed work in order to have a case for copyright infringement. Rather than risk that sort of loss, Apple and many other companies include clauses forbidding employees from working on outside software projects even in their spare time as standard boilerplate in their employment contracts. If you don't want to play by those rules, don't work for the company. They can find plenty of top-tier engineers who will gladly play by those rules.
- gnulinux 6y ago
  Ok ok, you're taking this way over the top. No engineer ever invents a new optimization that will give Apple competitive advantage and they don't know this is important and "accidentally" put it on OSS code. I don't believe this for a minute. Inventions that give companies technical competitive advantage are created via multiple iteration by a team of engineers, by them doing research. It's never the case that someone wakes up one day and writes code that can be considered an "invention". It usually starts with an engineer finding a problem, another engineer doing research on this problem for some time, and then to improve found solutions, a group of engineers discuss viable solutions.
  - phendrenad2 6y ago
    I think large corporations are big targets for frivolous lawsuits, so they grow big paranoid legal teams. Those teams succeed based on crossing every t and dotting every i, so they eventually look for any threats, no matter how small. Eventually it turns inward and they start stifling innovation by trying to handcuff their own developers, because there's some small chance they could accidentally leak something.

WTF Apple..?! Is this due to some fear of IP leaking via employees contributing to OSS?

by jtdev 6y ago

WTF Apple..?! Is this due to some fear of IP leaking via employees contributing to OSS?

Yes, and it is a legitimate fear. Someone with access to Apple's IP may unintentionally or even inadvertently leak that IP in an open-source project. Say you developed a clever new optimization on the job at Apple. You use the same trick in your open source code, thinking it's no big deal, it's just one small piece of code. But that code is now the property of Apple, and they may consider it more valuable than you do. It may enable, for instance, faster encryption with one of their custom chips. That's an edge they have in the marlet that they might lose were it not for exclusive use of that bit of code. They could lose millions -- meaning they could sue you for millions. In a court of law, it is sufficient to prove that the defendant had access to the infringed work and that their work is substantially similar to the infringed work in order to have a case for copyright infringement. Rather than risk that sort of loss, Apple and many other companies include clauses forbidding employees from working on outside software projects even in their spare time as standard boilerplate in their employment contracts. If you don't want to play by those rules, don't work for the company. They can find plenty of top-tier engineers who will gladly play by those rules.

gnulinux 6y ago
Ok ok, you're taking this way over the top. No engineer ever invents a new optimization that will give Apple competitive advantage and they don't know this is important and "accidentally" put it on OSS code. I don't believe this for a minute. Inventions that give companies technical competitive advantage are created via multiple iteration by a team of engineers, by them doing research. It's never the case that someone wakes up one day and writes code that can be considered an "invention". It usually starts with an engineer finding a problem, another engineer doing research on this problem for some time, and then to improve found solutions, a group of engineers discuss viable solutions.
- phendrenad2 6y ago
  I think large corporations are big targets for frivolous lawsuits, so they grow big paranoid legal teams. Those teams succeed based on crossing every t and dotting every i, so they eventually look for any threats, no matter how small. Eventually it turns inward and they start stifling innovation by trying to handcuff their own developers, because there's some small chance they could accidentally leak something.