An [interesting article][0] was posted online yesterday about GitHub's initiative which allows it's employees to contribute free software to the software sharing community, in such a way that employees won't feel the risk of a company (i.e. GitHub, and whoever adopts this new or similar agreement) taking ownership of their code.
[0]: http://insights.dice.com/2017/03/22/github-beipa-employees-keep-ip/ I receive email from Dice.com, which is how I found out about this. This article is not about [ContractPatch][1], but GitHub's BEIPA seems eerily similar in terms of purpose, so I thought it would be worth sharing here to get the conversation started and to add new opinions. [1]: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/?tag=ContractPatch So, right off the bat: "Good initiative, bad judgment." BEIPA is short for "Balanced Employee IP Agreement". I like the concept, but not the name. Richard Stallman (RMS) has written and spoken voluminously about the confusing propaganda term known as IP (Intellectual Property). I remember RMS stating that the purpose of this term is to clump several unrelated laws together in order to introduce confusion into a conversation, and that whenever someone uses this term: No one truly understands the specifics of the law that is being discussed, because the law itself has not been identified yet. It could be Copyright law, Patent law, Trademark law, etc., but until the person talking about IP has specified which one, confusion abounds. The GNU Project maintains a list of words to avoid and IP [is listed][2] as one of them for good reason. Most, if not all, software developers release their software under a copyright license-- not a trademark license or a patent license. Knowing this, wouldn't it be a better idea for GitHub to rename BEIPA to BECA (Balanced Employee Copyright Agreement) or something similar, like: FECA (Free Employee Copyright Agreement)? I'm just throwing names around and I'm sure these acronyms are already taken, but the idea is: Be less general; be more specific. [2]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#IntellectualProperty The current agreement attempts to cover various different laws which may affect an employee, so without using the term "copyright", perhaps even SELFIDA (Shared Employee Liberties For Initiating Development Agreement) could be an acceptable name for such an agreement. The name clarifies the purpose behind the agreement. I replace the term "property" with "liberties", since our rights are what some companies are truly after. You can't even begin or initiate development without software freedom, let alone to continue development and collaboration within a community. I felt like the term "balanced" was too vague, so I used "shared" instead; besides, that *is* what we do in a community: We share. In essence, by signing the agreement, the employee is now "free" to work on his projects without the risk of losing his work to the company. The article states that without such an agreement, "your employer can claim ownership of the intellectual property that is your app or service." This statement could be rewritten as: "your employer can claim ownership of the copyright of your program"; left out the word "service", since it relates to [SASS][3] (Service as a Software Substitute) hence spreading propaganda (i.e. software developers write software, not services). [3]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.en.html That said... I admire GitHub's efforts to not only create such a unique agreement that allows free software developers the freedom to continue to create and contribute to free software, but also GitHub's ingenious idea of publishing this [agreement as a repository][4] on GitHub itself (never mind that GitHub [is not an ethical code-hosting site][5] yet; I opted to view it with EWW, the Emacs Web Wowser, for now), and under a CC0 (Creative Commons Zero Universal) license so that other companies could use it in freedom. [4]: https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement [5]: https://www.gnu.org/software/repo-criteria-evaluation.html#GitHub As a side-note: There shall be no flame wars. For those who may argue that GitHub *is* an ethical code-hosting site, despite the above GNU criteria link, I submit this message to you (please think critically): You use their nonfree JavaScript to use important features on the site. Do you consider the idea of a free software developer running nonfree code in order to look at free code... strange? To be ethical, GitHub must respect our freedom. It has a bug; a pull request should be made. I mentioned GitHub's word choice of "IP" in BEIPA and their use of nonfree JavaScript in general, because I've noticed that whenever an organization (usually an "open source" booster) adopts the same propaganda as proprietary software companies, they also adopt the same values, too. For instance, it is well known that proprietary software developers and "open source" boosters value convenience and popularity over freedom and privacy; sometimes, they will even admit to it! Running GNU/Linux? Run the following command right now inside GNU Bash: repo=https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement lynx -dump $repo | grep 'docx.*add convenience' The output that you would receive from the above command seems to suggest that GitHub considers DOCX, a nonfree file format, to be a "convenient" file format. Is this the same reason why their JavaScript is also nonfree, because it is convenient? We need freedom-respecting file formats, not convenient-to-use-while-trampling-over-our-freedom file formats. GitHub's description of the repository is: "GitHub's employee IP agreement, open sourced and reusable". The DOCX version of the agreement, however, does not respect computer user freedom, because it is a binary file requiring the use of a nonfree program; PDF, in stark contrast, can be opened using free software. It's conversion from a Markdown file is besides the point, you know. Ironic that GitHub would support this nonfree file format, despite [our logic and consensus][6] (i.e. the fact that Open Document Format exists implies our consensus). [6]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.en.html Some may wish to have it removed, but I think a smarter decision would be to replace it with a text file, containing a message similar to: "DOCX is a nonfree file format and is useless in a free society. If you wish to view our employee agreement which supports software freedom, creativity, and collaboration within a company, then please view the ODT (OpenDocument Text) version located here <...>, which-- by the way-- is readable by Microsoft Word, and especially free word-processors." Please note that GitHub has already published an ODT version of BEIPA, hence my suggestion is reasonable and trivial to implement. Anyway, I digress. Despite some of GitHub's flaws, I really like the effort that they are putting into allowing other companies a way to show their employees that they respect their freedom-- ON and OFF the clock. I believe that if other companies adopt this agreement, that the agreement itself will be like a "seed"-- a freedom seed-- that will eventually take root and spread to other departments within the company, other branches, other divisions, and soon... other companies and organizations entirely. This prospect alone is exciting for me! Not to mention, what better way do we have to let our employers know that we care about this, then by mentioning that other companies are already adopting agreements that respect computer user freedom; GitHub, possibly being the first (correct me if I'm wrong). Such an agreement could even be used as leverage during salary negotiations; trading a higher salary for an additional perk, instead (e.g. a signed agreement for the employee to keep their copyrights). That asking for too much? I believe that anyone who brings such an agreement with them to a salary negotiation meeting, final job interview, or any special meeting designed to bring innovative ideas to further software development, has the potential to plant a seed for software freedom, possibly ushering in 30 more years of freedom under the aegis of GNU and you if we all do it! Perhaps other companies will follow suit, and not just tech companies. Any thoughts? P.S. ==== I'm CC'ing the libreplanet-discuss list, because I think it would be a great idea if ContractPatch and similar initiatives are discussed, or at least mentioned, at this upcoming LibrePlanet this Saturday and Sunday. I know it is in alpha at this stage, but maybe the benefits and merit behind the implementation of such an agreement could be discussed. Maybe even a lightning talk, if their is no time to discuss at length. Someone should dissect the legal code and find out if it is an ethical agreement or if it needs some more work. Not everyone at the conference uses mailing lists, which is why I'm bringing this up. I know this is short notice, but this news was literally published just this week. Semper Fidelis -- Michael Pagan (pegzmasta) [71B46D72] B942 AD12 82B1 6D14 27A0 86AE 119E 451E 71B4 6D72 Free Software Hacker, <https://savannah.nongnu.org/users/pegzmasta>
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