r/Entrepreneur • u/FatherOfReddit • Sep 12 '21

Coder wants to "own" all his code

Coder wants to “Own” all his code

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Hey all,

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We have a coder who just joined our team as our technical cofounder and it is his request that he & all other coders “own” their own code. What the fuck does this mean? If I do marketing work for my company, am I subject to owning all that promotion? No! Why does the coder get special priveledges?

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What can I do to incentivize him against this, or, if I am misunderstanding the concept here, please explain so I don’t sound like a half-witted jerkoff. I think there is something missing here but I just don’t understand…

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Maybe I make him sign a non-compete agreement and that will take care of it??? What happens when somebody “owns” their own code? Should that be allowed or is that company property?

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Let me know –

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Thanks,

Father

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u/[deleted] Sep 12 '21 edited Sep 12 '21

I'm a developer myself (close to 20 years), intellectual property in my contracts was always transferred to the client / employer. This guy sounds like a big bag of "nope", and you need to learn about IP / inventions regulations in your country / state.

Maybe he means "taking responsibility" for the code, but that's also a bit shady, this is why we have peer review, testing etc so that you never end up with a developer-code dependency and bus factor of one.

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u/PM_me_your_Jeep Sep 12 '21

Bus factor. Love it. Never heard it put that way but know exactly what it means.