IBM To Kernel Maintainer: "You Are An IBM Employee 100% Of The Time"

[kpedersen]

A slight risk I see it is that kids would be proud of signing off as a big fancy corporation (especially for games development). So many companies would take advantage of this and perhaps normalize it. If you as "the older generation" don't want to play ball, then they will replace you with some young kid. It is a slippery slope and laws do need to protect this.

[smitty3268]

Wow, what is that country that is still practicing slavery? The point of salaried position is that every extra over time hour requires an extra payment, otherwise it's not a salary but a pension while being kept in a vulnerable situation. That's abuse. There can be a lot of abuse in salaried positions but what you just described just makes abuse a requirement.

If you get a salary and you're being overworked, either you get less work from the employer, either you get more money from the employer, otherwise it's not a salary but you're your own employer and then you have full power to decide what to do yourself. If you cannot require from the employer (yourself or someone else) to do what to do, you're a slave.

It may mean different things in different countries, but in the US the point of a salaried position is a guaranteed minimum level of income. Not getting OT - that's what hourly positions are for.

There are several labor laws in the US that only apply to hourly positions, rather than salaried positions. The reason is that in order to qualify as a salaried position it has to pay a high amount of money (at least compared to what non-salaried positions can). So the idea is that for a guaranteed high wage, there are fewer limitations on what can be required. Higher wage workers are expected to be able to protect themselves, and either negotiate or move to another job when they want. Whereas for low wage employees, the government steps in and mandates certain protections.

[illwieckz]

Unless it's in your employment contract, there's no such thing as "8 hours/day, 5 days/week", or anything like that. Salaried positions don't pay overtime. If you get a salary and you're being overworked, all you can really do is quit.

Wow, what is that country that is still practicing slavery? The point of salaried position is that every extra over time hour requires an extra payment, otherwise it's not a salary but a pension while being kept in a vulnerable situation. That's abuse. There can be a lot of abuse in salaried positions but what you just described just makes abuse a requirement.

If you get a salary and you're being overworked, either you get less work from the employer, either you get more money from the employer, otherwise it's not a salary but you're your own employer and then you have full power to decide what to do yourself. If you cannot require from the employer (yourself or someone else) to do what to do, you're a slave.

[finalzone]

Thankfully Red Hat has lost its free-spirit culture even before the gulp by the Big Blue Bruvva.
Makes it sort of hurt less.

Red Hat has nothing to do with this topics.

[kreijack]

It is a strange situation. The author sent several patches with an @linux.ibm.com email[*]. This could suggest that he developed (even recently) the driver as "IBM employee". The email suggested also that he is still an "IBM employee".

So I understood the request of IBM, which sound like: "because I am sponsoring the develop of a part of the kernel, I would like to have an evidence of the IBM effort in the linux kernel source."

Moreover, if he developed the driver as IBM employee, he increased their know out about the driver as IBM employee. So his work done in the free time depends by know how acquired as IBM employee.

If my understanding is correct, IMHO ( and IANAL) the commit under the IBM umbrella should be marked with an @ibm email address, which sponsored directly (with money) and indirectly (with *specific* know how) his work.

However, I have to point out that he changed the email address not for a code but only in the list of maintainers. If he is doing the maintainer job as IBM employee, the IBM request is still understandable.

My opinion would be different if he committed patches for or he support code never sponsored by IBM. But in this case the commits seem to suggests that IBM was involved.

Say that, nobody can be Employee 100% Of The Time. However there are case where an opera of an author is a direct child of his work; in this case an employer can have some rights.

BR[*] e.g. https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux...cf1c5b9bcbbc4e

[ferry]

The gentle conservative american citizen is considering this as "socialist country" ...but in fact its just human.

IBM germany is also not so nice concerning their management culture (I have heard that of a retiered employee - just his experience but I dont have any other input).

I recommend to watch Where to invade next (Michael Moore) https://youtu.be/qgU0I8rl-ps for all the US readers here :-)

[gbcox]

Obviously there is something else going on here between the employee and the manager. I haven't looked into the project but I'm assuming that it is owned by IBM. If that is the case, then perhaps they only want IBM contributions. Just because something is open source doesn't mean the project owner has to accept all contributions. In addition, maybe they only want contributions from IBM employees. If that is the case, then obviously they would want all the contributors to use their ibm email accounts for identification purposes. Common sense is that the manager wasn't telling him that he needed exclusively use only his company email while employed by the company.

[Quackdoc]

"Your actions have made everyone angry."
-------------Reputation -1------------------

[danmcgrew]

Interestingly... the place I work pays me for all travel time, AND I get to keep my miles. If I get stuck in the airport for 2 days... that's overtime, obviously I can work to some degree remotely but yeah. (overtime is just extra hours not an increase in pay but still).

This is a REALLY interesting comment. Would you mind, under separate cover, sending me information on applying for a job at your company?

Oh...wait: (1) do you work for a firm outside the US?; or (2) if you work for a US firm, are you an hourly employee?

I have been in the business / corporate world for a loooong time (in the US), at one time managing sales for half the US. I have never, and I do mean NEVER, heard of someone in sales and or management being paid for travel time. This observation applies strictly (again: in the US only) to 'non-exempt' employees, as defined by US law--usually "hourly" employees.

[AmericanLocomotive]

As a salaried employee, it wouldn't have been about overtime.

I think it was most likely about split loyalties between what's best for IBM vs. what the maintainer thought was best for users or the kernel.

I'm not sure where this particular employee resides, but there are some fairly recent changes to OT laws in the U.S, where certain salaried employees can be eligible for overtime.