
Getting Paid to Abandon an Open Source Project? - soundsop
http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/05/1317252&from=rss
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tptacek
Only on Slashdot can someone post the question "a company approached me
offering money for goods and services", and then find themselves
hypothetically compared to prostitutes and Darth Vader. Nobody owes "the open
source community" their code.

"It's shameful because it comes with a non-compete that prevents him from
working on open source". And? It must be even more shameful to _choose_ not to
contribute to open source, which is what the overwhelming majority of
developers do.

~~~
mdasen
Slashdot can get a little heavy on the FOSS evangelism, but I think it's fair
to say the company is being underhanded.

Think of it this way: the company wants to hire him because of the open source
project. To rephrase: the open source project got him that job. As such, it is
logical that the open source project could get him other jobs in the future -
possibly several. By agreeing to a non-compete on that project, he is agreeing
that it will never be a selling point for his future employment since he can
never work on that code again.

I'm perfectly fine with developers spending their time on closed source
projects. I'm perfectly fine with a company demanding that their code stay
proprietary. What I think is crazy is a company demanding that you give up
what got you the job with them.

That is, unless this is being treated as an acquisition. As such, the author
should be entitled to a sweet buyout deal. But that isn't the case here. The
author is being ladened with the conditions that should apply to a buyout deal
without the buyout payoff. If you founded a company and produced proprietary
code and another company came along and wanted it, you'd ask for a buyout (of
your company, of that project, whatever). Pay day! Here, the company wants
that kind of control without paying for it. Not ok.

~~~
tptacek
If the company can pony up enough money to convince the developer to
permanently move his efforts from the open source project to their product,
what's "not ok" about that? Companies are entitled to offer money in exchange
for goods and services. Developers are entitled to consider accepting money in
exchange for their services.

The only condition that's been "laden" onto this deal is a noncompete, which
actually strikes me as reasonable, as the company has every reason to believe
that this person will work in their spare time on a project that will
cannibalize their own market.

Again: they're not _forcing_ him to do anything. They're saying that if he'd
like to move from open source to commercial development full time --- at least
for the application he's working on now --- they'll pay him to do that. Most
developers would be happy to face that kind of decision. Only on Slashdot is
it considered a tragedy.

~~~
Herring
Yeah because slashdot (as part of "the open source community") has something
to lose but isn't a part of the economic decision. This isn't a moral cause &
there's no need for strawmen. Nobody said anyone's forcing anyone, nobody said
developers aren't entitled to work for money. There's a lesson here to be had.

~~~
tptacek
Which is what?

~~~
Herring
I was thinking "markets work poorly when it comes to public goods &
externalities", but I suppose you can add "politics makes people crazy" and
"karma is annoying".

~~~
tptacek
What's the public good in this situation?

------
BrandonM
This "predicament" is interesting to me, but not for the reasons that a lot of
commenters are pointing out. Previously I didn't understand why someone would
license their open source project under a BSD-like agreement as opposed to
GPL. On the surface, it looks like you're completely giving away control of
the work you've done, and that the only beneficiaries in the deal are those
who aren't doing the work.

This situation made me realize the possibilities that a BSD-like license
offers to both the original authors and subsequent contributors. If the
project is interesting enough, it is feasible that multiple contributors could
get hired by different companies to work on proprietary forks of the original
BSD project, possibly with some kind of initial "payout" for signing a non-
compete.

This seems to be a much better alternative to the GPL model, where the main
alternatives are consulting, selling documentation, hoping for enough donation
money to support you, or (the longshot) getting hired by a company which uses
the project to continue open source development, bug fixes, and in-house
modifications.

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qhoxie
I may very well be naive, but this is the first such situation I have heard
of. It is a really fascinating predicament for the writer.

~~~
wheels
It's super common, actually. Employer wants to hire expert, so they google for
experts. They find one and they've done some OSS stuff in the area. They offer
him a job, but with the standard non-compete clause. It's not nearly as
devious as it sounds.

~~~
michaelneale
Depends where you are, but people often question all non-competes. Also, in
some countries/states they are proven to be unenforcable (so generally
companies don't try, except for US based companies that try to slip it in).

Non-compete is really a joke, look at half the large tech companies out there,
lots of them came out of people forking off from another large company (heck,
oracle execs have spawned heaps of companies).

~~~
wheels
Sorry, I meant non-compete while you're there -- which I think is pretty
standard everywhere. After you've left the place they're not enforceable where
I live either.

~~~
michaelneale
right yes, well for OSS that could put a dampener on things if the OS project
does indeed compete (but then why join? or, join, and let someone else take
over the project !).

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rbanffy
If the project is relevant, it will be forked. He will retain the copyright to
his contributions or sell them to the company that's hiring him, but it
doesn't change the fact the code has already been released under a BSD
license. It's gone. It belongs to the world now.

As for the NCA, it should be very expensive for the company hiring him and
should reflect the value they place on his project. NCAs, in general, are very
expensive.

------
known
Getting Paid for Not to Vote for a Candidate. Is this legal?

