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Right now, the way it works is that you produce code, then you give that code to your employer, and they give you money in exchange for the exclusive use of tha
by jawns 2y ago
Right now, the way it works is that you produce code, then you give that code to your employer, and they give you money in exchange for the exclusive use of that code. The code and the money change hands.
What you're proposing is that you produce code, then your employer gives you money in exchange for use of the code -- but you also get to keep the code and do whatever you want with it? Why would an employer agree to that?
- TheNewsIsHere 2y agoIt’s my opinion that, barring areas like (for example) nuclear missile guidance software, technologists should generally get to keep their own reference copy of work products. Before knowledge work was near exclusively performed on computers, it was not uncommon for people to preserve their own reference copy of work they had performed, and it wasn’t all that frowned upon. Technology exists (for example DLP applied to endpoints by MDM) that enables the (at least ostensible or plausible) prevention of this but it mostly keeps honest people honest.
- antisthenes 2y ago> Why would an employer agree to that? Because someone realizes of the power disparity between employee and employer, and legislates them into doing it. Also, realizing that 99% of all code is useless out of context. The value of an e-commerce site, for example, isn't in the code itself that runs the shopping cart and website, but in the relationship with vendors and in the marketing talent to get your site popular compared to others.
- staticman2 2y ago>>Why would an employer agree to that? If I sell a book to Random House, Random House gives me money in exchange for the publishing rights to the book, but 35 years later under the copyright act reversion clause I can apply for the publishing rights back regardless of what the publishing contract says. Why would Random House agree to publish books?
- jawns 2y agoYour example gives Random House 35 years of exclusive rights. While not indefinite, it's still worth paying for, just as financial options are worth paying for, even though they eventually expire, too. The grandparent example gives Random House 0 years of exclusive rights, which means the author could directly compete against them from the start.
- altruios 2y agoAS WELL THEY SHOULD!!! If an author can do a better job: the publishing house needs the run for its money... for it has gotten fat and lazy.
- staticman2 2y agoThe great grandparent discussion was of MTV taking down a web site and the idea that the authors should get back the rights at that point. This would not harm MTV seeing as they were doing nothing with the content.
- altruios 2y ago> Why would an employer agree to that? Because they are rational people who understand that data copied isn't a loss for them, and would rather attract more passionate leftists (if that's what your going for) to work with than people in a wage-slave mentality... But everyone's going to do what they're going to do... regardless of if it makes sense or not, and having old (materialistic-centric) world views on digital content distribution is something we are going to have to learn to outgrow sooner than later. Maybe it would jive better with the old school mentality if the diction of 'licensing to the employer' was non-exclusive as a default: resulting in higher wages where an exclusive license is actually required (or legal or moral/ethical reasons). Being generally open about software makes the wages go up, not down. More of us get more done, faster, while exponentially increasing gains by contributing back. Open Source is the Way.
- datavirtue 2y agoWhy not? They still own the copyright. And code is useless/worthless without engineers.