Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:2725 misc.jobs.misc:9143 Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,misc.jobs.misc Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!news.hawaii.edu!ames!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sdd.hp.com!mips!newsun!gateway.novell.com!terry From: terry@npd.Novell.COM (Terry Lambert) Subject: Re: AT&T sues BSDI Message-ID: <1992Jul28.231215.26910@gateway.novell.com> Sender: news@gateway.novell.com (NetNews) Nntp-Posting-Host: thisbe.eng.sandy.novell.com Organization: Novell NPD -- Sandy, UT References: <1992Jul25.222121.20426@socrates.umd.edu> <s6j1Hp4!q8@atlantis.psu.edu> <ORION.92Jul28023753@nuchat.nuchat.sccsi.com> Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 23:12:15 GMT Lines: 60 In article <ORION.92Jul28023753@nuchat.nuchat.sccsi.com> orion@nuchat.nuchat.sccsi.com (Roland Dunkerley) writes: >I thought there was a precedent that no agreement you make with a >company can prohibit you from earning a living in your chosen >profession. This is true, but it doesn't necessarily imply that they have to let you work for someone else in order to do it. This is usually in the form of a "non-competition" agreement. I suspect that if the "contamination" theory holds, wherein programmers are "contaminated" by AT&T source code exposure, that this could be applied. The "all reasonable precautions" requirement to maintain a trade secret comes in the form of a non-disclosure. For an employee, this is generally handled by binding the employee to any non-disclosure agreements made by the company as part of the employee's non-disclosure, which is what allows the employee to act as an agent on the companys behalf. Corporations, being a legal fiction, can not act as agent's in their own behalf (a company does not modify/examine software; an agent of the company does so in the companys behalf). My cousin Mark won a case in Minnesota (where he was working for an unnanmed embedded controls company that OEM's embedded controls to places like IBM). He won it on the basis that he could not be deprived of his livelyhood, in that civil law takes precedent over contract law (this decision is one of the reasons it's still illegal to contractualy obligate a person into slavery, or to sell children [unless, of course, you are the IRS]). This also has precedent in case law which greatly predates it. This is why you can not have slaves, even though it is not strictly illegal (you just aren't allowed to import, sell, or breed them, nor create them with contract law). The brunt of the decision was that the company had two options: they either had to allow Mark to work for another employer, or they could prevent him from doing so while paying him a wage sufficient to match his fair market value, which was determined by the competitor. They chose to pay him for the 1 year rather than let him work for the competition. If AT&T can make "contamination" stick, then they will also have the option of allowing you to work for what, in their rather broad view, is their competition, or, if they wish to enforce your nondisclosure to your employer, they can pay you your fair market value for the duration. Another interesting fact is that the longer the term on a noncompetition/nondisclosure agreement is, the less enforceable. The longest duration I have *ever* seen enforced by a court was 18 months. This means that if AT&T wishes to pick nits, they can hire us all for 6-18 months... so read the source! It's job security! 8-) 8-). >LSI-11 processor with a re-arranged instruction set running AMOS, an >exact clone of RSTS. For my money, AMOS is more like Tops-10. Terry Lambert terry_lambert@gateway.novell.com terry@icarus.weber.edu --- Disclaimer: Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present or previous employers.