Re: Informix vs Oracle, alleged trade secret theft

In article <5cnlv1$6j8$1_at_news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net> Martyn Richard Jones <martyn1_at_ibm.net> writes:
>netac <netac_at_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_at_rossinc.com               Compuserve 70661,1534
These are my opinions, not necessarily those of Ross Systems, Inc.   <> <>
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