Re: Informix vs Oracle, alleged trade secret theft

In article <5cnlv1$6j8$1@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net> Martyn Richard Jones <martyn1@ibm.net> writes: >netac <netac@worldnet.att.net> writes: > Larry Baker wrote: >> > >> > Yomama Sophat wrote: >> > > 1) Who's in the right? >> > > 2) Who will win in the end? >> > > 3) Who's got the better technology? >> > >> >> These cases are very scary. Unless the case is about specific theft of >> software or intellectual property, I could see the point. However, more >> and more tech companies are moving forward with these suits as if to say >> they own the minds of their engineers and they are not free to go >> forward and take a better job for a better offer. Its disgusting, and >> as technical professionals we should all be very concerned about this. >> The work I do for my company belongs to them, but my mind belongs to me >> and so do my skills and I can sell them to the highest bidder. I think >> this point gets lost in the discussion sometimes. > >Quite right. I went to work for PS a few months ago as >a "Principal" Consultant - I had previously done a lot of R&D work >on data extraction, rule based data transformation, expert systems >and DSS, Semi-Automatic mapping and program generation and had >developed a methodology for Data Mart Development _ DM3M. After starting >my contract the company I as told, oh! and by the way you have to sign this >standard non-disclosure (give up all intellectual rights) agreement. >Basically I refused to sign it as it was, who the hell do these >companies think they are. As you can imagine I will be leaving this >sunnyvale company, and no, I will not be signing any non-disclosure >agreement. > >Martyn > > Hmmm, most of the times I've had to sign those things I've also been asked to sign a document of things to exclude (patents and papers published and so forth). I did have a funny feeling about one company that had an "everything you do and six months after you are gone" type of doc, and sure enough, I didn't last two weeks there. But I wasn't doing anything important then, anyways. -- Joel Garry joelga@rossinc.com Compuserve 70661,1534 These are my opinions, not necessarily those of Ross Systems, Inc. <> <> %DCL-W-SOFTONEDGEDONTPUSH, Software On Edge - Don't Push. \\ V / panic: ifree: freeing free inodes... O