Conference 7.286::digital

    Note that your (US) employee contract says that Digital has the right
    to use what you develop in whatever way Digital chooses. Actually, this
    oversteps the law. There's a supreme court precedence known as Shop
    Rights. Basically, it means that Digital can do whatever it wants with
    it *internally*. Digital does not have the right to sell what you
    develop. The court precedent came about when an employee of Sears
    developed a socket wrench that fits all sizes of nuts. He patented the
    design and started selling the wrench. Soon, Sears started to
    manufacture and market it under the Sears brand name, Craftsman. The
    employee sued for patent infringement. The supreme court ruled that
    Sears could use the wrenchs internally, but could not sell them. 
    
    The part of the employee contract that makes developing new things
    unrewarding for the Digital employee is the conflict of interest part.
    Digital is involved in just about every aspect of software and hardware
    (or has plans to someday address just about all areas). Thus, just
    about anything an employee develops is conflict of interest because it
    competes with an existing or planned product. But Digital's lawyers
    and the review committee are mostly hot air, i.e., they tend to
    overstate their rights. A lawyer has told me that if you get an
    attorney to push back, they will quickly back down to more restricted
    sense of what is a conflict of interest. I was also told that unless
    you thought your product would make a lot money for you (more than enough
    to cover legal fees for example), that it would probably be better
    to maintain good relations with your employer than force the issue.
    
    -George

    IBM does market internally developed PC applications. The employees
    concerned had to go through a very long and involved fight before
    IBM finally saw the light. Considering the excellent quality of
    the software compared to what was available external to IBM, they
    would have been stupid not to.
    
    One employee who developed an excellent debugger didn't have the
    heart for the fight and left to make his fortune elsewhere.
    
    I know that the developers whose programs did see the light of day
    got about as much pleasure from the recognition as they did from
    the cash.
    
    If Digital really believes that its employees are its greatest
    resource, then it would seem silly to obstruct them and much better
    to try and harness their efforts as IBM eventually did.
    
    Perhaps there is some manager who would like a change of job...
    Just write up a business plan for the formation of a marketing unit
    to market employee developed software for certain market sectors
    not well covered by Digital products. Choose small sectors where
    Digital would find it too expensive to fund a normal product
    development effort.

    I'm going to mention a personal experience:
    
    Many years ago, when the PDP-8/F was a viable product sold with
    ASR-33s, I was involved with motion picture production as a small
    part of my job here at Digital.
    
    Because of my knowledge of the industry, I realized the following:
    1) Digital had an _excellent_ chance to get into the ground floor
    of this marketplace if we could come up with a cost-competitive
    product that would sensitize the industry to the vciompany.  The
    innate conservatism oof the industry would give us an inside track.
    2) I'd bought my own PDP-8/E and ASR-33.  I knew that a special
    control tape used in the printing of motion picture films from an
    original (technically known as a "timing tape") used an 8-hole output
    that _could_ be generated by an ASR-33 tape punch.
    3) On my own time/expense, I developed a program that would do this.
    It was prompting, had features in it that were not available on
    an equivalent hardwired punch, and it could also decode timing tapes
    (this required a different hardwired device if done conventionally).
    I even had the program evaluated and field tested in a motion picture
    laboratory.  (The programming language was FOCAL, with two assembly
    level subroutines.  This also would encourage people to use the
    computer as a calculator/workstation.  All software was core-resident.
    The cost of a PDP-8/F and ASR-33 with software was below the cost
    of a hardwired punch alone, and was far more user friendly and
    forgiving.
    4) I developed a marketing plan, doing my own reasarch (one report
    I bought cost me $100, and was unavailable only through motion picture
    industry sources).  I presented it as a way to get a foot into the
    door of the industry, with the possibility of several follow-up
    products.  I even shot a short film of the unit in action, which
    I had timed and printed using timing tapes generated by my own computer
    (all at my own expense) and presented a paper on it before the New
    England Chapter of the Society of Motion Picture and Television
    Engineers (SMPTE) of which I was an active member.  It later became
    the lead paper in an issue of their _Journal_.
    5) Since I was not in an engineering/software group, I shopped around
    to find any interested takers.  One group looked at the plan, and
    I was told, "Well, you've demonstrated it could make money.  But
    not enough profit to justify the effort.
    6) I was then given two bits of advice:  Either I could leave Digital
    and become an OEM for the industry, or I could "dump the program
    in DECUS."  Those were the only two ways my program package would
    likely be used by anyone other than myself.
    
    Is it any wonder why I doubt I'll ever go to that effort and expense
    again?
    
    Steve Kallis, Jr.
    
    

    re -.1:
    
    	That's a shame, Steve... but I suspect what happened
    was that the individual reviewing your proposal was reviewing
    it against other proposals which offered a comparatively higher 
    return on the corporate assets.  Unfortunately, not all good ideas
    can be supported...
    
    grins,
    Marge
    

I think the claim that writing software for, say, Apple Macintosh, is "making
a competitor's product more attractive" is overly broad. If we make a
Macintosh a more attractive thing to have WHEN it is connected to a VAX, then
we are doing DEC's business, not Apple's.

So I think DEC should have no complaint if you write a Mac client for NOTES
or VTX or DTR in your basement.  (AppleTalk to VMS connections are already
available from third parties.)  DEC should ENCOURAGE the development of such
things, and if DEC will not handle the sales of such a thing, they should not
prevent you from doing it through, say, Dreams of the Phoenix.  DEC can only
benefit from the existence of such programs.

But if your program is a spell-checking desk accessory (what, another one?)
then all you are doing is making the Mac more useful by itself.  If DEC can
claim that a more-useful Mac would steal business away from a strategic DEC
product, then they have a case for conflict of interest.

It is not in DEC's interest to develop an accounts receivable package for the
Macintosh.  Neither is it in DEC's interest to develop an accounts receivable
package for the IBM AT.  Or even for the VAXmate.  There is nothing an
accounts receivable package can benefit from a VAX connection beyond being
able to store its files there, and we already supply that capability.
(Others will soon supply that capability for Macintoshes)

On the issue of Mac/VAXmate competition, DEC should consider this:  When a
customer says he wants something (like Unix, or a Mac on his desk), we will
try to talk him into VMS or VAXmates.  But if he doesn't switch, there is a
point when we should stop talking and let him do what he wants.  Unix works
fine on a VAX, and we will still get his hardware business.  Macs work fine
connected to a VAX.  Especially when a customer ALREADY HAS BOUGHT the
Macintoshes, or non-VAXmate PC's, we are not going to talk him into trashing
them and buying VAXmates just so he can tie into a VAX.

Other examples of programs that DEC should encourage the development
of, and allow sales though non-DEC channels:

   1.	Translators to/from DEC strategic file formats, such as DDIF.
   2.	Clients for VAX-based servers
   3.	A VAX-resident gateway for the AppleTalk Transaction Protocol
		onto DECnet.

        Re:< Note 222.5 by MAGIC::DICKSON >

        .5:     Right on.
        
                Just today I  got  my  release  from the Business Conduct
        Committee (still need one  from  the Patent Committee), so it can
        be done.  I may  be  kidding myself, but I believe it's because I
        worked  hard  at answering the questions before the proposal went
        to the committee.  Don't leave anything up to their judgment, get
        support from  everybody  and  document that the support exists in
        your proposal.
        
                Support and encouragement DOES  exist, but you have to do
        your part right, too.
        
        Anker

	Would it be considered a conflict of interest if I were to own
    stock in a company, say Apple, or one of the software companies that
    writes primarily for Apple computers?   Does DEC care about these
    conflicts?
    
        I'm also having trouble believing the employer "owns" everything
    a salaried employee creates...  especially when the creation does
    not relate to the employee's "job content".
    
        This topic must have already been discussed somewhere???  Does anyone
    know where?
                                     
    Jonathan Dunaisky
    E.E. Co-operative Education Student/Employee

    The DEC contract in Germany says something like
    
    "the emplyee places his/her *whole* working capacity at the disposal
    of DEC" !!
    
    It's a good excuse at least when my wife comes with the 'job jar'
    on the weekend; I'm not allowed to work on anything else   !!  :-)
    

        Re:< Note 222.8 by ECCGY1::JAERVINEN "I'm pink, therefore I'm spam" >

                Come on guys and gals.  Be a little positive!  I tried to
        give you all  some  good  news and all you can discuss is the bad
        experiences you have had, or imagine you'll have if you try.
        
        Anker

Okay, here's a curve ball:  what if, instead of selling a product, you use 
computer resources to provide advice to a third party?  Specifically, my 
family has run for a number of years a business that analyzes a hotel's 
registrations and provides the hotel with information regarding where their 
guests come from and how much they spend.  No software is sold; only the 
results of the analyses.  The software was written years ago (in the early 
70's) in COBOL.  It had run for years on a service bureau's IBM-370 system. 

Because of service bureau prices that have shot through the roof, we 
decided to get a uVax I a year and a half ago from DEPP and convert the 
software to VAX Cobol.  We have been running (well, walking, as a uVax I
isn't terribly fast) well ever since that time.

All computing equipment used for the business is family owned.

My feelings on this business are the following:

1) Digital is not in the business of providing travel-related services to 
hotels (i.e., registration analysis).  No conflict of interest there.

2) Any software that was written or modified for the business is only for 
our own use in providing our services to hotels.  It is not for sale.

3) I suppose that in the most extreme sense it could be seen that my 
working on the conversion is a conflict in that we should have hired a 
Software Specialist from SWS (at a cost of $100+ an hour) to do the work), 
when we could barely afford to get the machine in the first place.

4) It could conceivably benefit Digital greatly over the long term if our 
business ever takes off, as the potential is there for our needing to 
migrate from the uVax to much bigger Vaxen (yes, it's pie-in-the-sky right 
now with exactly one (1) client, but I like to think big).

Any thoughts?

John Francini

        Re:< Note 222.10 by VINO::FRANCINI "Tops-10 Spoken Here" >

                I checked  section 6.06 of the policy and as far as I can
        see there's no problem.  You don't even need approval.  Of course
        I take no responsibility, so you'd better check it yourself.
        
        Anker

    re: .10--The only problem I can see is that you purchased the
    MicroVAX I under the Employee Purchase program, and so you
    shouldn't use it for business purposes unrelated to your
    employment at Digital.  Your ability to purchase at Employee
    discount gives you an unfair advantage over your competitors.
        John Sauter

    re: .12
    
    Seems to me I remember seeing somewhere in the DEPP conference that
    is was *OK* to use a DEPP purchased computer for a *FAMILY* business.
    
    I didn't see any specifics, but now that the subject is being tossed
    around, can anyone of authority out there give a definitive answer
    to this question? 
    
    It seems hard for me to believe DEC would offer a uVAX-II to employees
    and would only expect them to use it for purposes "related" to their
    employment at DIGITAL. To add fuel to the fire, I know of certain
    cases where an employee was LOANED a PRO-350 or MicroVAX to work
    on DIGITAL specific projects. Why then charge others 8K+ for
    essentially the same thing? 
    
    I've missed something somewhere here. Just what are the limitations
    of use when purchasing equipment from DIGITAL via employee purchase?
    I can understand limitations like not developing compilers or something
    of that nature, but what about just using a system as a computing
    engine?
    
    After all, just the presence of a DEC system in *ANY* small business
    is likely to have a large impact on all who know of it's existence.
    DIGITAL makes great computers and operating systems that blow the
    doors off any "micro" or even "small mini-computers" from most other
    companies. I know, because I personally have 3 different computers,
    all of them multi-user, multi-tasking (no waste of CPU cycles at MY 
    house), and none of them come close to my MicroVAX. It truly is the best
    engine for a small business - especially if that business ever starts
    getting BIG. *GOOD* business software even for single-tasking micros
    isn't cheap, and no small business person wants to throw away their
    investment in software just because they've outgrown their "micro"
    and can't move their software to the bigger machine.
    
    So what is the bottom line? What can we do and not do with a DEPP
    purchased system? 
    
    						Warren Kemerer
    

    re .9: Anker, look at the :-) in .9!!
    
    

    DEPP Terms and Conditions:
    Introduction:
    "An employee may purchase through the DEPP only two systems during
    a twelve month period of time for their personal use of the use
    of their family."
    Section 10: Definition of Immediate Family:
    Mother, Father, Wife, Husband, Daughter, Son, Grandparents,
    Grandchildren, Mother-in-law, Father-in-law, Sister, Brother.
    
    It makes no mention of whether these individuals are allowed to use
    them in business or not.  I assume business use is OK.

        Re: .15
        
        I had thought that `personal use' meant that it could not
        be used to run a business.  Could someone who knows better
        provide a clarification of this?
        
        					B.J.

    I certainly know of someone who purchased an 11/73 for use in the
    family business ( a bakery). They also purchased RSX-11M+ and A-to-Z.
    
    andy

    I've Purchased Hardware & Software for the family Business.
    I didn't get the �VAX from DEPP,
    But I did buy an RD53 disk, Memory, 7 VT200 Series Terminals, 3
    Printers etc. The entire system is also covered under an employee
    Hardware & Software (Rdb, WPS, CDD, TDMS etc.) maintenance contract.
    
    When the DEPP says two systems they mean 2 DEPP pre-packaged computer
    engines not terminals or modules/components.
    
    The wording in DEPP contracts and policies are vague when viewed
    under close scrutiny in this light. Perhaps this is intentional 
    enabling corporate to interpret applicability on a case by case basis.
    
    The unfortunate part is that I had to buy the �VAX from a third
    party Digital Distributor due to the fact that the company does
    not sell directly to "small bussiness users" and the DEPP doesn't
    offer the BA123 box.
    
    -Joe