
Reporting on OSCON 2016 - ashitlerferad
https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2016/may/28/oscon-2016/
======
mark_l_watson
Her 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
But 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.

~~~
ashitlerferad
She 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/)

