You got to understand what an employee 100% of the time means. It means to be 100% Employer-Owned - It is the Culture of Ownership.
But the tyrannical double standard do-gooders and the continued pretense that they're trying to help people in this society (e.g. women, minorities, free software, etc) is a lot more destructive. Am pleased to know you are allowed to do, say, think, etc. whatever you want to, without being controlled or limited. Have had developers here who have contacted me privately to tell me how amazed they are seeing me pushing my ideas about what software and project administration is. People who describe me as toxic, abusive, entitled, a jerk, a troll, a donkey and a twit... A very long list indeed. Because the only people they are willing to accept are people like themselves. My guess is that in their meetings, they sit around discussing who is worthy to join this wonderful group that they are. Sitting around trying to decide who would get to be allowed into this developer group. The whole thing is rotten because the purpose of the group is mostly centered on deciding who could have this honor. > Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 2021 at 9:42 PM > From: "David Brown" <david.br...@hesbynett.no> > To: "Giacomo Tesio" <giac...@tesio.it>, gcc@gcc.gnu.org > Subject: Re: On US corporate influence over Free Software and the GCC > Steering Committee > > On 20/04/2021 08:54, Giacomo Tesio wrote: > > Hi GCC developers, > > > > just to further clarify why I think the current Steering Committee is > > highly problematic, > > I'd like you to give a look at this commit > > message over Linux MAINTAINERS > > > > https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/netdev/net.git/commit/?id=4acd47644ef1e1c8f8f5bc40b7cf1c5b9bcbbc4e > > > > Here the relevant excerpt (but please go chech the quotation): > > > > "As an IBM employee, you are not allowed to use your gmail account to work > > in any way > > on VNIC. You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a > > "hobby". You > > are an IBM employee 100% of the time. > > Please remove yourself completely from the maintainers file. I grant you a > > 1 time > > exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change." > > > > > > This is happened yesterday (literally). > > I know nothing of this case other than the link you sent. But it seems > to me that the complaint from IBM is that the developer used his private > gmail address here rather than his IBM address. > > It is normal practice in most countries that if you are employed full > time to do a certain type of job, then you can't do the same kind of > work outside of the job without prior arrangement with the employer. > That applies whether it is extra paid work, or unpaid (hobby) work. > This is partly because it can quickly become a conflict of interests, > and partly because you are supposed to be refreshed and ready for work > each day and not tired out from an all-night debugging session on a > different project. > > Usually employers are quite flexible about these things unless there is > a clear conflict of interests (like working on DB2 during the day, and > Postgresql in the evening). Some employers prefer to keep things > standardised and rigid. > > A company like IBM that is heavily involved in Linux kernel coding will > want to keep their copyrights and attributions clear. So if they have > an employee that is working on this code - whether it is part of their > day job or not - it makes sense to insist that attributions, maintainer > contact information and copyrights all make it clear that the work is > done by an IBM employee. It is not only IBM's right to insist on this, > it might also be a legal obligation. > > (It is quite possible that this guy's manager could have expressed > things a bit better - we are not privy to the rest of the email or any > other communication involved.) > > > This is precisely why copyright assignment for the FSF can involve > complicated forms and agreements from contributors' employers. > > > > > > And while this is IBM, the other US corporations with affiliations in > > the Steering Committee are no better: > > https://gcc.gnu.org/pipermail/gcc/2021-April/235777.html > > > > I can't see any relevance in that post other than your "big corporations > are completely evil because there are examples of them being bad" comments. > > > I can understand that some of you consider working for such corporations "a > > joy". > > But for the rest of us, and to most people outside the US, their influence > > over the leadership of GCC is a threat. > > Please stop claiming to speak for anyone but yourself. You certainly do > not speak for /me/. I don't work for "such corporations", I am outside > the US, but I do not see IBM or others having noticeable influence over > gcc and thus there is no threat. > > David >
