Re: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?

When our laborers take scrap material, we treat it as theft, because there is 
money in selling our scrap to the recycling places, and sometimes due to the 
chemicals in our scrap we are under government regulations regarding proper 
disposal of the scrap. 

Other white collar professionals produce blue prints, methodologies, 
accounting statements, which belong to the company & there is no question 
about that.  There is often a great deal of pride in what we have 
accomplished & we want to show it off, but it does not belong to us.

The tools of programmers include our brains, and various manuals & 
publications ... most of the dead tree publications are paid for by the 
employer, while much of the computer resource is mixed.  I use my home PC to 
surf the internet to learn stuff to use at work, but I ask my employer to pay 
for AS400 network membership.  When I do buy publications to help me with my 
work, that I store at the office, I am careful to insert a copy of record of 
purchase where it won't be misplaced so that there is no arguement about me 
taking MY books with me if they are still reasonably current if & when I part 
company.

We can only take the tools we brought or bought if we can prove that we did 
so.

There is an intermittent problem with tools that can be used at the work site 
and at the home site, that manage to walk off the work site, so some workers 
bring their own tools, but how is management to know which is which?  When 
management has failed to engrave company tools with company identification, 
the worker sure needs to properly mark his.

I believe that what we learn from each other through the internet has a value 
to our employers far greater than any company would gain by keeping our 
programming knowledge secret.  In these discussions we just have to be 
careful to focus on programming issues, and software package solutions from a 
generic perspective, without getting into specifics of our employers that 
managers might consider confidential or embarrassing.

> From: LKeel@UNARCORACK.com (Lurton Keel)
>  
>  They can only take the tools they brought. 
>  If they build a tool on the job using job materials, they can't take it.  
>  They can take the scrap only with permission.  
>  Haven't you seen guards checking lunch boxes?

>  From:    hweatherly@dlsc.dla.mil (Weatherly, Howard)
>  
>  But they get to take the tools home which they brought 
>  and perhaps the scrap material! Not a good analogy.
>  
>  -----Original Message-----
>  From: Lurton Keel [mailto:LKeel@UNARCORACK.com]
>  Sent: Tuesday, May 23, 2000 05:53 PM
>  To: 'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
>  Subject: RE: What are a programmer's rights to what he writes?
>  
>  
>  Take the discussion outside of programming context and it makes more sense.
>  If I hire someone to build a garage on my property, does the contractor or
>  any worker have any right to the garage? No (as long as I pay the bill).
>  I work in a manufacturing environment, so do any of the welders have any
>  right to the product that they build? No. 
>  On the other hand, the IE's that work here, as well as the managers,
>  supervisors and programmers get paid $1 (confidentiality agreement) up 
front
>  for all the intellectual and other inventions they may devise.  Even if 
they
>  do it in their home workshop, it is still the property of the company.
>  


Al Macintyre  ©¿©
http://www.cen-elec.com MIS Manager Programmer & Computer Janitor

Y2K is not the end of my universe, but a re-boot of that old Chinese curse.
This message was written and delivered using 100% post-consumer (recycled) 
data bits
The road to success is always under construction.
Accept that some days you are the pigeon and some days the statue.
Murphy's Mom brought wrong baby home from hospital so it should be Kelly's 
Law.
If consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, only geniuses work here.
When you want it cheap - you get what you paid for.
When in doubt, read the manual, assuming you can find the right one.
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