[conspire] NDA Addendum page

[Rick Moen]

After hearing (in confidence) yet another horror story of an
unreasonable non-disclosure agreement (NDA) suddenly sprung on people
without prior warning, in a situation that didn't even involve a
business relationship, I've drafted this thing:

http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Licensing_and_Law/nda.html

The idea is:  You print out a copy, scrawl at the bottom of the NDA
"Addendum A incorporated by reference" just above where your signature
will go, and hand in the sheet with your signed NDA.  They can of course
tell you it's not OK.  Depending, you might walk -- or discuss which
of your terms aren't OK and why (and why it's OK for _them_ to spring a
surprise legal instrument on you, but turnabout is somehow not fair play).

Like all my other writings in the knowledgebase (except as noted), that
page is freely licensed under Creative Commons's Attribution-ShareAlike
2.5 licence, a permissive copyleft licence.  Please modify to suit.

(You could just line out and ink in a replacement for the sentence in
item #3 where I cite my line of business -- substituting your own -- if
you never otherwise create your own modified version.  Also, of course
you might alter the expiration to match the details of your situation --
but there should _be_ one, anyway!)


Reminder:  NDAs can be _dangerous_ to your independence and livelihood, 
if they don't have a suitably narrow scope and duration.  This crap
about "confidential information" needing to be stifled by force of law
is ridiculous in the computer field, if nowhere else.  Six months is 
about the reasonable maximum life of any secret, there.


(Obligatory note:  Neither this mail nor my Web pages are a substitute
for compentent professional legal help, if you're in a situation that
requires it.  I am not a lawyer.  This is not legal advice.)