Severance Agreement And General Release: Fill & Download for Free

Before providing a substantive answer, I must wonder: If your startup is represented by a law firm, why are you double-checking its work on Quora?Disclaimer in addition to the standard disclaimer: This answer is not intended to interfere with or displace your company's relationship with its existing legal counsel.The CXO's requested change would put the agreement way outside the mainstream. I have worked on many similar agreements, and no one has suggested a reciprocal release. If the CXO insists on reciprocity, I would be concerned about his or her suitability for the position and the company.Furthermore, it is quite possible that a release of CXO liability would not be fully enforceable. You have not specified the jurisdiction, but, in all likelihood, the CXO will have fiduciary obligations under applicable law, and those obligations probably cannot be waived by contract.Indeed, any directors who approved such a waiver may, themselves, have acted contrary to their own fiduciary obligations!

If your advisor has collaborators who are going to attempt to steal your work, you have much, much bigger problems than what’s in your source code.The novelty of your thesis is in the ideas. The code is merely a way of testing those ideas. It’s similar to an experimental thesis in physics. Showing someone the lab apparatus you are using isn’t nearly as important as discussing the ideas that the apparatus is designed to test.Since your advisor has presumably already discussed the ideas, if the collaborator is going to steal your ideas, they already likely know enough to do that if they know enough to want your code.Much more likely, assuming your advisor isn’t a naive idiot, they will build on your code to expand the larger system in some way. (This could be by writing more code, by running some experiments in another area, or doing something else that is out of scope of what you are doing.) That’s going to be good for you in that they will then publish papers, possibly with you as a co-author, which will bring more attention to your system and your work.As others have noted, there may also be intellectual property (IP) questions. If you are in the US, there’s a relatively good chance that you don’t own the IP anyway, in which case it doesn’t matter. If you do, it’s worth having a brief discussion with someone who knows about IP only if you believe the ideas are such that you might be interested in forming a company or otherwise licensing the IP in the future. (In particular, for patents, in the US, public disclosure is an issue. However, if done properly, you will be able to argue that giving code to a collaborator with restrictions on redistribution is not public disclosure.) In any other case, more exposure is better.In any case, I’d be tempted, when sending the code and with the agreement of your advisor, to send a “cover letter” that tells them where to get the code and also that states the purposes for which you are providing them the code (e.g. to extend and perform other experiments in the context of the collaboration being performed). My goal there would be less legal and more simply to make sure that everyone has a common understanding of the collaboration. The idea is to avoid bad feelings if the collaborators believe, for example, that you are generally releasing the code when you have the intent to share it only with them.Edited to add: I’ve gotten several comments suggesting ways that one can protect the intellectual property, particularly as embodied in the code. Let me suggest that people with that point of view write answers. A careful read of my answer will show that my belief is that the code itself is probably of low value and that the ideas may have more value, but the value to a grad student is in dissemination. Beyond that, if this question is from the rare grad student with an immediately businessworthy idea, the advisor has probably already messed up any possible patent or similar IP claims. So, overall, annoying the advisor by getting a lawyer or claiming trade secret status or other approaches is likely to annoy someone with great power while bringing no benefit at all.

My two “favorite” myths — meaning the two I know the most about — are:That the July 20th assassination attempt against Hitler was nothing but an attempt by “a small clique” of German generals to avoid unconditional surrender, andThat the Battle of Britain was won by “the Few” — that is the pilots of RAF Fighter Command.Allow me to explain in turn.The July 20th Coup and Assassination AttemptThe coup attempt of July 20, 1944 was the culmination of years of resistance to Nazi rule on the part of a network of influential individuals both civilian and military. Their resistance to Hitler was based on profound moral objections to his ideology and his policies. Their numbers included theologians such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, legal experts such asHelmut Graf Moltke, dipomats such as Dr. Adam Trott zu Solz and civil servants such as Carl Goerdeler. That military men seemed to be in the fore was a function of the fact that only the military had the means to depose Hitler in wartime.The first serious coup attempt by this core group that included Generaloberst Beck, General Stuelpnagel, and General Olbricht was planned for September 1938 — that is during the Sudenten Crisis and before the Second World War even started much less before it was lost. The commanders of divisons slated to invade Czechoslovakia were prepared to disobey Hitlers orders and remain in place while senior officers arrested Hitler and a panel of leading doctors declared him insane. The Munich Agreement that made it possible for Germany to secure the Sudetenland without war, robbed the conspirators of the pretext for Hitler’s arrest. (Below General von Stuelpnagel, a key figure in the plot at this time.)The core conspirators continued to plot against Hitler despite his early military successes and they made several daring assassination attempts before July 20. One of the most promising attempts entailed smuggling a ticking bomb aboard Hitler’s aircraft as he returned from a visit to Army Group Center on the Eastern Front. The fuse failed probably due to excessive cold or altitude. Had the bomb gone off, Hitler would have been killed in an explosion while flying over Soviet held territory. This would have enabled the coup leaders to seize control of the apparatus of government without being viewed as traitors and assassins — a huge advantage. (Below: General von Tresckow, who devised and executed this assassination attempt.)The fact that during the war years,the Resistance leaders recruited to their number men such as Generalfeldmarshal von Kluge and General Rommel — neither of whom shared the fundamental aversion to Hitler as the core leaders of the Resistance — has confused observers into dismissing all the conspirators as opportunists. Tragically, Hitler’s description of the conspirators as a “tiny clique of ambitious officers” still dominates modern images of the German Resistance.For more information about the history and people behind the July 20th Plot visit: German Resistance Plots Against Hitler - Valkyrie Conspiracy (valkyrie-plot.com) which includes a list of recommended reading at: German Resistance to Hitler - Sources - Further Reading (valkyrie-plot.com)Note: I earned my PhD with a biographical study of General Freidrich Olbricht, published by the prestigious German publisher Bouvier Verlag. The English-language biography of Olbricht based on my dissertation is available on amazon at: Codename 'Valkyrie': General Friedrich Olbricht and the Plot Against Hitler: Schrader, Helena: 9781844255337: Amazon.com: BooksIn addition, I have written a novel that attempts to honor the German Resistance in all its complexity, including SPD, KPD and humanitarian resistance: An Obsolete Honor. A new edition in ebook format under the title “Traitors — For the Sake of Humanity” is scheduled for release from Cross Seas Press in 2021.The Battle of Britain and “the Few”The myth that the Battle of Britain was won by the pilots of RAF Fighter Command is not entirely wrong. Without them, the Battle would most certainly have been lost — but they did not win the Battle alone. My objection to this popular myth is simply that it gives far too little credit to other equally critical players.I’ve talked elsewhere about the importance of Air Chief Marshal Lord Dowding Helena Schrader's answer to Who was the greatest military leader of the 20th century?, however, Air Vice Marshal Park also deserves far more credit than he commonly receives. (Below AVM Park)My most serious objection to the exclusive focus on RAF pilots — particularly in novels and films — is that it ignores the fact that they could not have flown even a single sortie without their ground crews, and they would rarely have found the enemy without the controllers. Every personal account by Battle of Britain pilots mentions the first-rate, dedicated, and unflappable ground crews, yet few modern accounts give them any attention at all. (Below, RAF ground crew rearming a Hurricane. Photo courtesy of Chris Goss)Likewise, the controllers — or more accurately the entire staff of the Sector and HQ Control Rooms — enabled the RAF to deploy its few resources most effectively. (Below the Control Room at Uxbridge, IWM)Where Eagles Never Flew attempts to give more credit to the men and women who served “the Few” on the ground by including sub-plots featuring both ground crews and controllers. For more about Where Eagles Never Flew see a video teaser at:Or visit: https://crossseaspress.com/where-eagles-never-flew