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
