The alternative interpretation of what you have said is that $16B is actually too low and that Slack is undervalued or at the very least it has a lot of room to grow.
Cofounder here. Really appreciate the discussion and all of the feedback. The spirit of the contract's never been intended to be unreasonably restrictive -- though I totally understand the concern. We wanted to include certain terms since as part of our model, we do own the code written specifically for Gigster projects. We certainly don't want to own code folks write outside of Gigster projects.
We've received very similar feedback recently and were going to do a review of the contract with our lawyers highlighting this specific issue. We'll also consider adding an FAQ around any contract nuances. We care about doing what is fair and while a lot of terms here are standard we'll try to review terms to make our position much clearer. Will share important updates.
They went from "lol, you're the only one with a problem, get lost!" to "hmmm, this is generating bad publicity.. now we definitely sympathize with your concerns!" real quick.
As far as I'm concerned, I now know all I will ever need to know about Gigster.
Your reputation is something that takes a lifetime to build and only 5 minutes to ruin permanently.
Hi, Debo gave me a similar response... used my own SOW contract at the time but haven't applied to work with Gigster since you instituted the new terms.
What you're missing is are two clauses regarding clear indemnification of the contractor, especially as it relates to pre-existing code, and two, clarifying IP ownership on that same pre-existing code. Gigster seems to pre-suppose that any pre-existing IP the contractor uses in the course of completing the contract is somehow assigned as property of Gigster upon execution of the contract. This is crazy.
I have no horse in the race, but this response feels a lot like you handling the situation vs actually caring about being unfair to developers.
Once you do get the new version of the contract, I suggest you read it from a random developers point to view. Maybe even have a "Show HN". Aim for reasonably unrestrictive? Because of this blunder, you now have more to prove! You wont have much of a marketplace if developers don't feel valued.
Why is a FAQ about your contract required? Isn't the contract the canonical agreement? Are you, in case of legal trouble, going to refer to both the FAQ and/or the contract? Seems a bit weird to me.
ps: I've found "standard" contracts are what everyone says when talking about their own contracts.
If I have this straight, your terms of service grants you exclusive ownership of any work done by a developer in your employ. Correct? What about customers? The projects that you're taking on are driven by client requests. Do they own their website, app, or whatever after the project ends?
> does not contain any third-party software, including without limitation, “open source,” “copy left,” “public” or other similar code or anything derived from or based on any of the foregoing
which absolutely, _obviously_ means you _do_ want to own or exclude code folks write outside of Gigster projects, since it says it can't contain open source code or be derived from or based on open source code. This is ludicrous -- almost every modern hardware or software product contains or is based on some open source or public code, including Macs (BSD code or BSD-derived code at core) all Android phones (all Android operating systems include and/or derived from open-source Android software), almost all web sites (based on/contains/derived from open source software like Wordpress etc.)
So, since you left that clause in there, you either fundamentally do not understand how modern software is built, or you do, and you thought that it was OK to pretend that it doesn't work that way and maybe somehow you could hold the developers responsible for the 'misunderstanding' if anyone called you on it.
> we do own the code written specifically for Gigster projects.
That's good.
> We certainly don't want to own code folks write outside of Gigster projects.
That's good.
But the contract apparently says something else.
This reminds me of a contract gig I had a while ago. I asked them similar questions about their contract, and they said "that's not what we intend to do". OK... so could they update the contract to state their real intentions?
A: No.
OK. I don't need the work that badly. If the contract starts with bad terms and them lying to me, there isn't much reason to move forward.
I mean, what would you like them to do? They're aware of it (and this thread obviously shined a brighter light on it) and are going to go over it with their lawyers. Isn't that reasonable? Contract changes don't exactly come quickly especially with expensive lawyers involved.
I'm just not sure what you would like them to do about it right now.
> I'm just not sure what you would like them to do about it right now.
The point is that when the contractor asked for changes, he got told to go stuff himself. It's only when there's larger publicity that they suggested the contract can change.
And, TBH, it's ridiculous to construe my argument as they have to change right now.
They were asked to change, and they refused. That's a problem. What part of that do you not understand?
I fail to see how I did anything to your argument. The original poster showed the email, the founder responded saying they're going to review the contracts because what's in there is not their intent, figure it out and then add a FAQ. You replied to the founder with a simple regurgitation of the issue and nothing more. The issue the founder just said they will be addressing in the comment you replied to.
So I wasn't sure what you wanted your comment to accomplish. Sounded like it wasn't fast enough but if that's not the case what do you actually want from this conversation with the founder? Do you want him to apologize to you? Do you want them to issue a public apology? What was your goal to avoid me from construing your argument any further?
> You seem to be so focused on making your point that you have stopped reading the comments you are replying to.
I disagree and felt I had already made my point and was attempting to clarify. But that's okay. Maybe I didn't convey it well enough?
I find emoting and conveying discussion points over a forum style doesn't always carry what my intent is and sometimes comes off wrong. Thanks for the feedback.
> At no point did the parent say that Gigster had to change right now
BinaryIdiot seems to be implying that I asked for Gigster to change right now.
And then there's this bizarre comment by him:
> > what do you actually want from this conversation with the founder?
I could similarly ask him what he wants from engaging with me.
> > Do you want him to apologize to you? Do you want them to issue a public apology
That's a telling level of projection. He's entirely unable to read English text as written.
Instead, he's like the 1950's fuddy-duddy who sees a picture of two people hugging, and immediately concludes that they're about to go fornicate as unmarried adults.
I think his point was: this thread made it clear that Gigster was being sketchy. The founder realized this and promised he'd fix it. Other than "go back in time and change their past policy" it seems like they're reacting to this situation in a reasonable way.
No one disagrees that the original interaction was bad, but is it productive to keep harping on that when the founder seems to be making a good-faith effort to make it right?
This is exactly what I was attempting to convey. Re-reading the thread it still looks as if I accomplished that but based on the downvotes and confusion I'm guessing I didn't.
> BinaryIdiot seems to be implying that I asked for Gigster to change right now.
I covered this here:
> So I wasn't sure what you wanted your comment to accomplish. Sounded like it wasn't fast enough but if that's not the case what do you actually want from this conversation with the founder? Do you want him to apologize to you? Do you want them to issue a public apology? What was your goal to avoid me from construing your argument any further?
> I could similarly ask him what he wants from engaging with me.
I was seeking an understanding of your comment and what you wanted to accomplish. From my point of view it appeared that the founder responded to the issue in the best way they legally could and then you just repeated the issue at him. Seemed less useful, more "I just want to be angry at you". hence why I asked.
HN is a community in which many interact with one another to seek better understanding, discussion around a topic, etc.
> I was seeking an understanding of your comment and what you wanted to accomplish. From my point of view it appeared that the founder responded to the issue in the best way they legally could
If that was true, the contractor would have been able to get the contract updated when he originally requested. And the original article wouldn't have been written.
> and then you just repeated the issue at him
I didn't "just" repeat the issue at him. Again, your inability to read text as written is showing.
I added an illustrative story from my own experience to show why such negotiations (even if addressed later due to larger publicity) come across as being in bad faith. As I saw in my story, as we saw in this case.
And then you went off the deep end with various accusations and projections.
Honestly, it seems like they're doing the right thing now, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if the answer to this is, "They shouldn't have put it there in the first place."
Yes, it's probably some stock-standard boilerplate contract, but if companies can write contracts that contractors accept only on the assumption that they'll never be enforced, then when someone calls them out for it, they get to say, "Oh, people hate this? We'll change it (now).", what gives people the incentive to start with reasonble terms.
> it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if the answer to this is, "They shouldn't have put it there in the first place."
Maybe? If you say a clause shouldn't be in there couldn't a lawyer immediately take you to court and get the document invalidated?
I wouldn't rush to saying anything about the contract IMO.
> Yes, it's probably some stock-standard boilerplate contract, but if companies can write contracts that contractors accept only on the assumption that they'll never be enforced, then when someone calls them out for it, they get to say, "Oh, people hate this? We'll change it (now).", what gives people the incentive to start with reasonble terms.
Gigster is a YC company so "move fast, break things" etc. They probably went with what was the fastest / cheapest at the time, no one had an issue with it and it was never brought up.
My point was that there's not always something to be done "now", and sometimes when you "break things" it, shockingly, has negative consequences that forward-looking changes can't necessarily undo.
Gigster | Fullstack Web | Full-Time | San Francisco, VISA
Come work on the problem of delivering high quality software reliably and at scale. We have hundreds of projects running simultaneously and collect data about all aspects of the software development process with the aim of automating repetitive aspects of sales, project management and software development itself.
The web work is mostly done in javascript -- React & Node. Some other languages & technologies we use: Postgres, Mongo, Flask/Python, Redshift, Angular, Docker, RabbitMQ
The company's business is growing pretty rapidly but the team itself is still pretty small and there's a very clear opportunity to make a big impact.
We already do this @ Gigster. Except you don't get hired to be full time employees. You get "hired" to work on short term projects (that you can accept or deny) which is arguably more fun.
Multiple developers are common on (mobile) apps that require custom backends and larger projects that need to hit a tight timeline. All projects have more than one person on them and typically at least 3 (dev, pm, designer)
One of the main developers of the Yahoo weather app is a gigster (developer on the platform). The statement is that it was built by "one of our gigsters" and is intended to showcase the quality of work developers on Gigster have done. Had that developer been on Odesk or TapFame they would have listed Yahoo Weather as part of their portfolio. In this case they actually do list it as part of their portfolio. Definitely do not intend to take away from your hard work and appreciate you for it. Happy to do better in making this clearer but it's a bit unfair to imply that we cant showcase the work of developers on our platform as an indicator of developer quality.
Sorry, I agree with the OP. I interpreted the "Success Stories" page, especially when it is sub-titled "Our prior work speaks for itself" as referring to the work performed through Gigstar. There is a difference between allowing somebody to claim work they performed versus assigning that claim to the body that employs them after the fact. This example, just because of the lack of clarity, presents itself as the latter which is a little unfair in itself.
I am one of the cofounders and I'll be emailing you right away. This is absolutely not the way we operate and I'm happy to jump on a phone call with you to answer any questions you have! Very sorry about any issues you had in our chat. Techcrunch is definitely stretching us (in a good way) and so sometimes we mess up. Very sorry once again I'll be in touch!
