I wonder if the author would view this situation differently had Uber/Box decided to claim the code as their own. It has to bring some catharsis to know that, even if the code never actually met its potential, at least the whole world can see and appreciate it.
I created a whole programming language as an intern for <defense megacorp>. It was lazily evaluated and garbage collected. Unquoted MAC addresses were valid syntax, among other application-specific oddities. No bytecode or JIT shenanigans - the interpreter just pushed and popped stuff from a stack as it traversed the parse tree, and that was fast enough for what we were doing with it. The interpreter was written in pure ANSI C, and Valgrind was very happy with it. Maybe it has been totally forgotten, or maybe it became critical to their technical infrastructure. That code never left the airgapped lab where I wrote it, so I have no way of knowing. 3 years ago, as a recent college grad, that was by far the coolest piece of "actually useful software" I had ever written. It's still high on the list. Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to it.
The part the author is missing is that Box and Uber have already claimed the code as their own. It will be in the employment contract. The author appears to be under the impression that asking a mid-level manager (or even a senior manager) "Hey, do you want this?" and that manager answering "No", is in any way legally binding on the company.
I've only ever agreed to those terms kicking and screaming. I wish there was a larger part of the community willing to advocate for a "love of the art" clause that would explicitly state that code I wrote on my own time is mine.
I created a whole programming language as an intern for <defense megacorp>. It was lazily evaluated and garbage collected. Unquoted MAC addresses were valid syntax, among other application-specific oddities. No bytecode or JIT shenanigans - the interpreter just pushed and popped stuff from a stack as it traversed the parse tree, and that was fast enough for what we were doing with it. The interpreter was written in pure ANSI C, and Valgrind was very happy with it. Maybe it has been totally forgotten, or maybe it became critical to their technical infrastructure. That code never left the airgapped lab where I wrote it, so I have no way of knowing. 3 years ago, as a recent college grad, that was by far the coolest piece of "actually useful software" I had ever written. It's still high on the list. Sometimes I wonder whatever happened to it.