Re: [DotGNU]Copyright waivers for developers?

[Mike Hoolehan]

On (13/08/01 09:58), Barry Fitzgerald wrote:
> Hmm.. I didn't know about this myself...
> 
> I suspect that this is true all over the world.  This should be illegal,
> but we all know that our glorious nations actually don't believe that
> workers rights are human rights.  (Of course, this carries the
> implication that workers are not human but rather, commodities - gee,
> isn't capitalism great!)...
> 
> In all seriousness, they'd have to throw me in jail before I submitted
> to an agreement that let someone do that to me...
> 
>       -Barry

There's nothing illegal about having employees voluntarily sign agreements
as condition of employment.  Fortunately, no one is going to throw you in
jail, Barry, for not wanting to sign such an agreement, but you may not 
get the job!

If I may, the "evil" here is not necessarily just the potential employer.
If potential employees all refused to sign this sort of thing, and instead
flocked to more benevolent employers, then soon the "bad" employers would 
have to change their practices in order to compete for employees.  But as
long as enough workers are willing to put up with sub-par employers in 
order to get the salary or work resources or research dollars or whatever
it is they truly want, we're stuck with the way things are.

In places where employee rights _really_ are not respected as human rights,
things are much different.  When workers are stripped of their right to
choose employment, real evil abounds.

Mike