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Bibbit7424yIt's always surprising to me that these kind of tasks are not being compensated for... Shouldn't there be some kind of law or at least a possibility to prevent bastards like these to run away with your work??!
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Include a copyright statement reserving all rights to the code. Make it clear to the person receiving this that this code is allowed to be viewed and evaluated only. If they start using your code, and you can prove it, you can make a copyright claim. It is theft no matter how you look at it. Service theft is also punishable in local municipalities. Know your local laws.
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Is there a software license template for this?
Something like:
"This code copyright John Smith 2020. All rights reserved.
If you are a potential employer you have n days to review this code for quality and efficacy. After which this temporary license expires."
Could even have an end date inserted in there. You could even embed a phone home line of code to tell you if they are running your code. -
Bibbit7424y@Demolishun sounds good. But wouldn't it be too hard to check whether they used your code or not? Then you would have to file for the right to scan *all* their source files for matching patterns or something?
Edit: nowhere near experienced with laws, but I find this quite interesting how someone could protect their code from these things -
@NEMESISprj I don't know, but at least you show your intent and gives you grounds to hold them accountable. If they are completely amoral they won't care anyway. If they are too dumb to code it themselves they may not have the brains to check for phone home stuff. This could at least be an avenue for proof. Now, lets say they do this to 100 coders. Could be grounds for class action suit. Which could be devastating and send a message to other douche bag companies. But, this all costs money. So I don't know the reality of this paying off.
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Bibbit7424y@Demolishun yeah when you get in contact with bigger companies it's probably not worth the effort other than going public with it or smth.
The ultimate payback would be to create backdoors in your code for these kinds of tests lol -
@NEMESISprj I thought about back doors, but that could be turned around on you. That could be a way to show malicious intent. The karma though... If only the universe were fair...
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bryceleo1974yThey can't actually use your work. You still own it. If you can prove they're using it you've got a decent case.
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And as long as suckers keep doing the free work these companies will keep doing this.
Related Rants
Just had my reasoning for not doing technical projects for interviews proven.
Pass the first 2 stages of interview (including showing some personal portfolio projects) then after a week of hearing nothing get sent a technical project to complete.
Spend every spare moment for a week polishing this thing, decent front end, quick and efficient back end, low traffic between fe, be, persistence etc.
Submit the code at midday ready for the interview the following day, only for the company to phone at 5pm and say all is fine and the code is great for the final interview (walkthrough) the next day, then phone 5:10pm phone and pull the position.
That company has just had free work done which should have cost 1 weeks worth of fees, using the premise of a job at the end of it, only to take the code that they are super happy with and run with no payout.
rant
free work
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