What would you do?
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Following your argument to a conclusion; as long as I can get it out of your house, it's OK for me to steal all your stuff and the police shouldn't bother investigating because it's your fault for having a rubbish deterrent in place. Fine - just post your address please and I'll be round later with a van.
I have CDO, it's OCD with the letters in the right order; just as they ruddy well should be
Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads
You guys are busting me up! ;P
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ChrisElston wrote:
My contract is very clear on that.
Never make contracts with the Devil. What I do at home is my business. Do you really think a company would take responsibility for anything happening outside the company ground/hours?
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth EditionSo, if I am working on a project or some code for the company at home during the night and I get hurt (it can happen), is the company responsible? Can I claim Workman's Compensation? Is it the same as an on the job injury? Is there a lawyer in the room?
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Do nothing because that is a loop hole which company should take care to protect the source code.
rahul
rah_sin wrote:
Do nothing because that is a loop hole which company should take care to protect the source code.
I like how this was marked as an "official" answer. :laugh:
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From the replies some people consider it theft. But is it? The first company isn't denied the use of the code simply because the second company has the same (or similar) code. (There is a whole philosophical debate raging on this issue regarding copyright at the moment.) I accept that if a company has invested in some development it feels gives them a competative edge over a rival then it will want to protect that investment. So the question becomes is the second company in this case a rival to the first? If not then where's the harm? And as a practical matter, unless every developer is given an amnesia pill at the end of their employment then they will always be taking some of a company's code with them when they leave. Usually not whole solutions, but code snippets and approaches (in their head at least). And all companies benefit from this when they hire experienced staff. I'm not saying what this person did wasn't wrong. It's not theft in the proper use of the term, but it *may* be harm. Any response should be based on how much. More specifically, if there is harm, or you think there may be harm, then flag this issue up with your line manager. That is your duty and responsibility as an employee.
I believe that the whole problem that we have all discussed is made more problematic by the nature of the creation. If our subject was a concern with a stapler that someone had allegedly stolen, even though there are millions of staplers just like the one in question, then we might react differently. They stole MY stapler, not one exactly like it, but MINE. The end use of the stolen stapler, to bind together slanderous and false allegations of theft perhaps, would be a totally separate issue. As, I think, is any attention to the end use of the stolen item. He stole my pistol. He drove nails with it at his summer cabin in the mountains. He stole my pistol! Because we concern ourselves with bits here in this realm, I think we fool ourselves into seeing a less dreadful problem (Yes, stealing staplers, and pistols, is a DREADFUL problem in this country :laugh: )! Is my code less valuable to me or to the owner, as a stapler or a pistol might be “valuable” for a given purpose, simply because I can’t hold it in my hand and hurt myself? Is the offense less egregious because my creation is made of bits? I think not. By the way, I just have to get me some of those amnesia pills. Then I will be able to forget about how much I have forgotten! :laugh:
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If you found out a ex-coworker took/stole some code from the company I still work for? (I always suspected this would happen, and now found a Silverlight app he claimed to have developed, obviously I had to look ;P ) While the section of code is trivial, the only thing he bothered to change was the namespace. The rest is pretty much identical, except for it going with EF vs Linq2SQL. - Should I report it? - Should I keep it with me as a possible future bargaining/blackmailing tool? - Should I send him an invoice for the time he wasted in my company* when he originally developed the piece of code*? - Do nothing - Blackmail him? * The one I am still working for. * I had to rewrite the whole thing anyways, as it was crap. The stolen code was what I wrote, in fact.
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth EditionSimple - report him to the company. Theft is theft. He was paid to write code for the company - not for himself. I understand that it can be difficult to separate certain bits of IP that one creates over a period of time, but there is a big difference between taking the concept of IP and re-using it vs. literally copying/pasting. When people do that and setup shop as competition how can someone even question the legal, let alone moral wrongs being done? I'm sure he's fine with the idea right up until he hires someone and they take off with "his" code.
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Euhemerus wrote:
Can you imagine Microsoft letting their developers have the ability to take their code home? Somehow, I can't.
why not? it is how they started after all!
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
Why not? Surely that's obvious. If Microsoft's developers could take code home, it wouldn't be too difficult, I wouldn't have thought, to get a complete copy of the Windows and/or Office source code. Imagine the uproar if that were leaked onto the Web by a disgruntled employee.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
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If you found out a ex-coworker took/stole some code from the company I still work for? (I always suspected this would happen, and now found a Silverlight app he claimed to have developed, obviously I had to look ;P ) While the section of code is trivial, the only thing he bothered to change was the namespace. The rest is pretty much identical, except for it going with EF vs Linq2SQL. - Should I report it? - Should I keep it with me as a possible future bargaining/blackmailing tool? - Should I send him an invoice for the time he wasted in my company* when he originally developed the piece of code*? - Do nothing - Blackmail him? * The one I am still working for. * I had to rewrite the whole thing anyways, as it was crap. The stolen code was what I wrote, in fact.
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth EditionI seems that it should be OK to take code you write when you leave as long as: I does not contain any company trade secrets. I is not code developed by others not you. It is excerpted rather than copied where possible. It is not covered by work-for-hire contract clause complications. After all the code may be your credentials going forward with your career.
"Coding for fun and profit ... mostly fun"
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leppie wrote:
So you are saying the company has to get a warrant to search employee's homes for evidence of company property (code in this case) when they leave the company?
It shouldn't have got that far in the first place. The Company is obviously lax in guarding its intellectual property. Where I used to work, ANYTHING produced on a company computer was regarded by the Company as THEIR property. This was made plain in the contract of employment terms. No computer had a recordable CD/DVD drive, and USB ports were disabled. Also, all email went through a scrutinising process so that the chances of any company information actually leaving the company was miniscule. Can you imagine Microsoft letting their developers have the ability to take their code home? Somehow, I can't.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
Wow, so you really think you can stop code from being stolen?? Several things come to mind. Mostly I wonder how much my productivity would be hampered by the inability to copy a file from one place to another. Now I work as an internal developer, but I copy files to a thumb drive to take to a user's desk sometimes. But even if that avenue was broken, can you really stop all forms of text from leaving the doors? I don't believe you can. Another thing to consider is that if the author can get the source code, then everyone in the world can get said source code. Then again, I am not sure how he can see the back end source.
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Wait, then who is? Everyone at the company is an employee. Are you saying that the only people who should care when someone steals from their company are the stockholders?
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Wow, so you really think you can stop code from being stolen?? Several things come to mind. Mostly I wonder how much my productivity would be hampered by the inability to copy a file from one place to another. Now I work as an internal developer, but I copy files to a thumb drive to take to a user's desk sometimes. But even if that avenue was broken, can you really stop all forms of text from leaving the doors? I don't believe you can. Another thing to consider is that if the author can get the source code, then everyone in the world can get said source code. Then again, I am not sure how he can see the back end source.
Kirk Wood wrote:
Mostly I wonder how much my productivity would be hampered by the inability to copy a file from one place to another
Err, it's saved on a company server....and accessed from there, ACLs ring any bells?
Kirk Wood wrote:
But even if that avenue was broken, can you really stop all forms of text from leaving the doors? I don't believe you can.
Off the top of my head, if you can't copy to any external media (cd, floppy, usb stick) that only leaves over the network. Any company worth its salt will have that covered as well. Ask yourself this question, how much proprietary software source code has been leaked onto the Internet? Are you really telling me that a disgruntled employee wouldn't leak if they could get a copy of it? These companies will have their source code well locked down. I'd be surprised if they were even allowed to print any of it. I don't even work in the IT/software industry, I'm an engineer with experience of working for a multinational bearing & steel company that very closely guards company information to the point of near paranoia.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
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If you found out a ex-coworker took/stole some code from the company I still work for? (I always suspected this would happen, and now found a Silverlight app he claimed to have developed, obviously I had to look ;P ) While the section of code is trivial, the only thing he bothered to change was the namespace. The rest is pretty much identical, except for it going with EF vs Linq2SQL. - Should I report it? - Should I keep it with me as a possible future bargaining/blackmailing tool? - Should I send him an invoice for the time he wasted in my company* when he originally developed the piece of code*? - Do nothing - Blackmail him? * The one I am still working for. * I had to rewrite the whole thing anyways, as it was crap. The stolen code was what I wrote, in fact.
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth EditionI tell ya what you should do: CHANGE YOUR IRONSCHEME LOGO - its the SAME AS LinqPAD!!! I wouldn't go down the blackmail path. Dont sink to his level, keep it all above board. Give the ex-worker a warning to take the application down within 7 days as it infringes Intellectual Property rights otherwise legal action will follow immediately.
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I tell ya what you should do: CHANGE YOUR IRONSCHEME LOGO - its the SAME AS LinqPAD!!! I wouldn't go down the blackmail path. Dont sink to his level, keep it all above board. Give the ex-worker a warning to take the application down within 7 days as it infringes Intellectual Property rights otherwise legal action will follow immediately.
meaningoflights wrote:
CHANGE YOUR IRONSCHEME LOGO - its the SAME AS LinqPAD!!!
I dunno what LinqPad's logo looks like. Edit: I see now. I think it is newer than mine though :)
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth Edition -
Why not? Surely that's obvious. If Microsoft's developers could take code home, it wouldn't be too difficult, I wouldn't have thought, to get a complete copy of the Windows and/or Office source code. Imagine the uproar if that were leaked onto the Web by a disgruntled employee.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
sorry should have added the joke icon, i was imply that it was how microsoft got started, by taken home the code from xerox
You cant outrun the world, but there is no harm in getting a head start
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Almost everyone I know takes a copy of code when they leave a programming job, although generally it is for the re-use of cunning ideas that may help them in a new job to avoid having to reinvent solutions rather than with any malicious aforethought. An ex colleague of mine left with the entirety of that company's code base on his phone. And now I think of it another company I worked for (that became the market leader) based their entire system on a database schema that had come from a rival company with someone who moved from them.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
ChrisElston wrote:
Almost everyone I know takes a copy of code when they leave a programming job, although generally it is for the re-use of cunning ideas that may help them in a new job to avoid having to reinvent solutions rather than with any malicious aforethought.
Pretty sure exactly that is a litmus test that in legal proceedings would be used to prove infringement. Certainly the fact that they are advertising it, since you know, indicates legal problems will occur at some point.
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leppie wrote:
So you are saying the company has to get a warrant to search employee's homes for evidence of company property (code in this case) when they leave the company?
It shouldn't have got that far in the first place. The Company is obviously lax in guarding its intellectual property. Where I used to work, ANYTHING produced on a company computer was regarded by the Company as THEIR property. This was made plain in the contract of employment terms. No computer had a recordable CD/DVD drive, and USB ports were disabled. Also, all email went through a scrutinising process so that the chances of any company information actually leaving the company was miniscule. Can you imagine Microsoft letting their developers have the ability to take their code home? Somehow, I can't.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
Euhemerus wrote:
It shouldn't have got that far in the first place. The Company is obviously lax in guarding its intellectual property. Where I used to work, ANYTHING produced on a company computer was regarded by the Company as THEIR property. This was made plain in the contract of employment terms. No computer had a recordable CD/DVD drive, and USB ports were disabled. Also, all email went through a scrutinising process so that the chances of any company information actually leaving the company was miniscule.
Obviously it has nothing to do with that. At least in the US an employee, unless specifically contracted otherwise, is already in a work for hire position. And contract employees either are or are not. In work for hire the employer owns the software - period. There is no ownership contention regardless of where the software is. The fact that an employee has the software on their computer at home doesn't change the owner of the software. A company does not need to take any other actions to insure work for hire products (precluding the noted contract positions.) The company you refer to has the following problems. - It makes working from home difficult. - It makes working on the road much more difficult. - It specifically tells the employees that the company doesn't trust them. (There is quite a bit of difference between taking reasonable steps and outright dis-trust.) And probably others. And those are going to impact productivity in a negative way. I suspect as well their their attitude makes it more likely that their employees will behave in a dishonest manner.
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rah_sin wrote:
Employees are not the watch dog for others.
And you can say the same about a witness to a murder. In your position one can claim that since the victim did not take the proper precautions or even that their precautions were not sufficient then a witness need not do anything because it is the victims fault.
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Euhemerus wrote:
It shouldn't have got that far in the first place. The Company is obviously lax in guarding its intellectual property. Where I used to work, ANYTHING produced on a company computer was regarded by the Company as THEIR property. This was made plain in the contract of employment terms. No computer had a recordable CD/DVD drive, and USB ports were disabled. Also, all email went through a scrutinising process so that the chances of any company information actually leaving the company was miniscule.
Obviously it has nothing to do with that. At least in the US an employee, unless specifically contracted otherwise, is already in a work for hire position. And contract employees either are or are not. In work for hire the employer owns the software - period. There is no ownership contention regardless of where the software is. The fact that an employee has the software on their computer at home doesn't change the owner of the software. A company does not need to take any other actions to insure work for hire products (precluding the noted contract positions.) The company you refer to has the following problems. - It makes working from home difficult. - It makes working on the road much more difficult. - It specifically tells the employees that the company doesn't trust them. (There is quite a bit of difference between taking reasonable steps and outright dis-trust.) And probably others. And those are going to impact productivity in a negative way. I suspect as well their their attitude makes it more likely that their employees will behave in a dishonest manner.
jschell wrote:
The fact that an employee has the software on their computer at home doesn't change the owner of the software.
I thoroughly agree with your statement. However, if that employee is dismissed or just plain nefarious, what is there to stop that employee leaking the company's software to either competitors or to the public domain?
jschell wrote:
It makes working from home difficult.
Agreed again. However, IMHO the company's intellectual property shouldn't be allowed to leave the company premises. Do you think Microsoft lets their developers take home source code for their bread & butter products, because I don't think so. I think it they did, Windows XP, Vista, Weven source code would be available on the Internet by now. Microsoft must have a very good way of making sure that their core source code isn't leaked.
jschell wrote:
It specifically tells the employees that the company doesn't trust them. (There is quite a bit of difference between taking reasonable steps and outright dis-trust.)
What is the difference between reasonable steps and outright distrust? Surely the former implies the latter anyway. The way I see it is, you either make the working conditions that great that the employee would see it as a mortal sin to leak, steal, borrow software code or you protect your company assets by only allowing the employee to work on one very small insignificant part of the software with no access to any of the other. But hell, who am I to say what's the right or wrong way, I'm only an engineer. I'm just saying it as I see it.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
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Kirk Wood wrote:
Mostly I wonder how much my productivity would be hampered by the inability to copy a file from one place to another
Err, it's saved on a company server....and accessed from there, ACLs ring any bells?
Kirk Wood wrote:
But even if that avenue was broken, can you really stop all forms of text from leaving the doors? I don't believe you can.
Off the top of my head, if you can't copy to any external media (cd, floppy, usb stick) that only leaves over the network. Any company worth its salt will have that covered as well. Ask yourself this question, how much proprietary software source code has been leaked onto the Internet? Are you really telling me that a disgruntled employee wouldn't leak if they could get a copy of it? These companies will have their source code well locked down. I'd be surprised if they were even allowed to print any of it. I don't even work in the IT/software industry, I'm an engineer with experience of working for a multinational bearing & steel company that very closely guards company information to the point of near paranoia.
Nobody can get the truth out of me because even I don't know what it is. I keep myself in a constant state of utter confusion. - Col. Flagg
Eh.... "Off the top of my head, if you can't copy to any external media (cd, floppy, usb stick) that only leaves over the network. Any company worth its salt will have that covered as well." Have you ever heard about an ancient method called "pen and paper"?? You don't NEED a printer or floppy to copy source code. Sure, lot of writing, but it is POSSIBLE. As an answer to the original question, I would notify my boss and then forget about it.
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If you found out a ex-coworker took/stole some code from the company I still work for? (I always suspected this would happen, and now found a Silverlight app he claimed to have developed, obviously I had to look ;P ) While the section of code is trivial, the only thing he bothered to change was the namespace. The rest is pretty much identical, except for it going with EF vs Linq2SQL. - Should I report it? - Should I keep it with me as a possible future bargaining/blackmailing tool? - Should I send him an invoice for the time he wasted in my company* when he originally developed the piece of code*? - Do nothing - Blackmail him? * The one I am still working for. * I had to rewrite the whole thing anyways, as it was crap. The stolen code was what I wrote, in fact.
xacc.ide
IronScheme - 1.0 RC 1 - out now!
((λ (x) `(,x ',x)) '(λ (x) `(,x ',x))) The Scheme Programming Language – Fourth EditionYou shouldn't do anything at all. I see it as quite normal thing to do. I won't hurt the firm you are working in at all.