
STL Hackathon Canceled After Social Backlash - philip1209
http://philipithomas.com/2012/08/stl-hackathon-canceled-after-social-media-backlash/
======
ChuckMcM
Sad story. Back in the 90's I used to eat with friends at an Unamas! mexican
restaurant which had a jar where you could drop your business card for a
chance to win a free lunch. I asked them what they did with the cards, they
didn't know. So I asked them how could I collect my free lunch if I won? They
said "You will get a coupon which you can bring in for a lunch." I said "When
does the winner get picked?" and they said "Every Friday, someone comes by to
get the cards, they pick the winner over the weekend. So on Friday I went over
at 5:30 and waited for the cards to be picked up. In comes a well dressed lady
with another jar, same labelling, drops it off and picks up the one with
cards. I intercept her on the way out, and ask what she is doing with the
cards.

As it turns out, she was the receptionist for a recruiter in the valley, they
took all of the business cards, added these people to the list of people who
they told their clients were 'looking for jobs' and then tried to move them
from one job to another. I pointed out that Calfornia state law required all
of that information to be available at the point where you entered the
'contest.' She said she would pass it on.

On Wednesday when I went in the jar was gone.

~~~
rmc
That would also be illegal in the European Union. The Data Protection
Directive requires all uses of personal data be opt in (ie you cannot use
someone's personal data for a purpose they didn't opt in to), that personal
data be kept accurately (you cannot say that someone is looking for a job if
they are not) and it also limits how companies can contact you (so the
recruiter would not be legally able to contact you nd they found a job)

~~~
rmc
I think it would also be illegal to share that personal data with other bodies
(so the restaurant cannot give the business cards to someone else). It's all
kinds of illegal.

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vnchr
I'm pretty disappointed with Teralogix on this, front and back.

I reached out to them early to offer help since their organizer wasn't plugged
in to the local dev or startup scenes. There was no follow up. Then when that
nasty legal note was discovered, I reached out again and found out that their
intent was to make it an _offer_ to join Teralogix and be funded by them, not
a requirement. Alas, they fumbled both and I'm disappointed we won't get to
see some new ideas from this event.

~~~
veemjeem
I feel like hackathons are going mainstream. Companies will run hackathons
because they "heard" it helps with hiring, but won't change any of their
standard legal paperwork for IP developed on their premises.

~~~
spitfire
The sponsored hackathon is the new 40 year old guy throwing on a leather
jacket attending indie shows to sign bands.

The value of the hackathon is rapidly diminishing. In fact I'd venture to say
once they started to be formally organized they started to devalue.

------
jlarocco
What is an "STL Hackathon"? Is it related to the C++ standard library STL? The
STL file format? Has it been mentioned on HN before?

~~~
sillysaurus
I was so shocked that St Louis _had_ anything close to resembling a "hacker
scene" that I swore it had to be some SF event being overly clever with its
name.

I live about 30 minutes from STL (or as the cool kids say: StL) so maybe I'll
check out their monthly Code Til Dawn
<http://www.meetup.com/allnightlong/#past>

~~~
michaelsbradley
There's some great high-tech, hacker, and startup stuff going on in Saint
Louis:

 _Yearly_

The Strange Loop Conference: <https://thestrangeloop.com/>

_Monthly_

Lambda Lounge: <http://lambdalounge.org/>

Saint Louis JavaScript Meetup (STLJS): <http://www.stljs.org/>
<http://vimeo.com/stljs>

STLRuby: <http://stlruby.org>

Code Until Dawn: <http://www.meetup.com/allnightlong/>

StartLouis: <http://startlouis.com/>

Build Guild in St. Louis: <http://saintlouis.buildguild.org/>

There's lots more too, those are just ones I'm either involved in or hear
about frequently.

------
gumdad
Haha. This is great. Seems young programmers are not so naive about IP after
all, eh Teralogix? Nice try. Way to go St. Louis hacking community. Always
read the fine print, and ask questions.

~~~
vnchr
After talking to Teralogix, it seems this was the result of an overzealous
legal team and a novice marketing lead on the project--as opposed to well
informed and well orchestrated deviousness on behalf of the organizing
company.

I agree, applause for those who discovered the clause, but the better outcome
would have been for Teralogix to do it right. Sadly, that didn't happen
either.

~~~
gumdad
Every employee is a representative of the company. That includes the legal and
marketing departments. And it is indeed, as another commenter calls it, lame
for persons outside those departments to use them as an excuse. It's their
responsibility to communicate with their colleagues and present a consistent
face of the company. I know little about Teralogix, but from reading of this
little stunt I am not sure I want to. Extremely unprofessional.

------
prezjordan
Unrelated - these Svbtle clones are getting out of hand. I guess this one
isn't so bad because the button placement and giant caricature are different,
but still.

~~~
le_isms
Just curious, why does this bother you?

~~~
prezjordan
It's too close for comfort. I'm not saying any layout with Helvetica and a
sidebar is automatically a Svbtle clone, but this is clearly stolen design,
and that doesn't sit well with me.

~~~
le_isms
I can understand, however, did you know that Svbtle is 'inspired' from
<http://drawar.com/> ?

~~~
prezjordan
Again, I'm not saying Dustin Curtis is the only one allowed to use Helvetica
and a fixed sidebar. But this blog has copied fonts, spacing, kudos, and
generally the layout is exact. Not similar, exact. There's a line that needs
to be drawn, and I feel this crosses it.

------
hospadam
First - I'm quite happy that the event has gotten shut down, for now.

Second - I've always felt like this was the case of a company trying to do
something they didn't fully understand. I got the vibe that these terms were
cooked up by a lawyer in order to "protect" and "provide value" to Teralogix.

I just wish they would have been more responsive to the community.

------
stratos2
The winning team comes up an with idea, it becomes IP of Teralogix who are
then sued by a patent troll for infringement. The current state of affairs..

------
brackin
The sad thing is I've seen hackathon's happen that have similar terms. One was
a student one where 50% of whatever anyone made would be owned by the founder
and he had the right to invest if he saw fit.

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rmc
I wonder if you could 'hack' this by working on a project that won, and to use
and depend on GPL (or even AGPL) software. If they use it, you've made them
open source their code.

~~~
andreasvc
As long as they don't distribute the code, it's not a problem. Companies can
maintain an in-house fork of GPL projects without having to release the
source.

~~~
rmc
If it's AGPL they have to release it the software is publically available.
That's the point of the AGPL.

~~~
andreasvc
> As long as they don't distribute the code

~~~
rmc
No. If you have Affero GPL (AGPL) licenced code, you have to make the source
code available if you make the programme "accessible to the public over the
internet", even if you don't distribute the code. It's a new licence from the
FSF, designed for web applications and the modern 'cloud'/'internet' world.

~~~
catshirt
please read between the lines here. "Companies can maintain an in-house
fork..."

------
kemayo
Wait, we have a hacking scene in St Louis? Crazy.

~~~
vnchr
Come hang out with us!

This Friday is Code til Dawn: <http://meetup.com/allnightlong>

~~~
sillysaurus
What, really? That's awesome!

How've you been liking it? It looks like there were 20 people last meetup.

~~~
philip1209
I love it! I'll be there.

~~~
count
How many of these folks are AFNIC-related? Is there a big non-DOD presence in
STL for tech stuff?

~~~
philip1209
I honestly don't know of anybody who comes to code-until-dawn events that has
military background. Ed Domain who started Techli was Air Force Reserves, but
I don't know if hee was AFNIC.

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tholman
You seem like a smart guy, and I really like your writing style... but why use
the flakey Svbtle clone... you can do better than that :)

~~~
philip1209
I'm open to suggestions :-)

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ricardobeat
Is that a "pirated" svbtle theme?

~~~
vnchr
"WP-Svbtle" by Gravity on Mars: [http://gravityonmars.com/2012/03/28/svbtle-
based-on-wordpres...](http://gravityonmars.com/2012/03/28/svbtle-based-on-
wordpress/)

~~~
ricardobeat
ugh. Why would you copy some closed community's look? It gives a terrible
impression. Wait a sec while I post about copyright on my techcrunch clone
blog.

~~~
jrockway
"Great artists steal," or something.

------
dylanhassinger
derpa derp

