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Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

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Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#121

Post by jacquesm »

reynard_le_faux wrote: post #119
jacquesm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor. If you have a legal problem, you go to a lawyer. If you can't afford a lawyer you might as well roll over right now because that will be the end game. The idea that some advice given in an online forum would reduce the need for finding a lawyer is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. You have no idea what the qualifications/experience/jurisdictions are of the…

So we should take advice to get a lawyer from a forum, but not take advice not to get a lawyer from a forum?

No, you should take the advice to get a lawyer from a forum, not to take the legal advice from a forum.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#122

Post by jacquesm »

otabdeveloper4 wrote: post #117
jacquesm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor. If you have a legal problem, you go to a lawyer. If you can't afford a lawyer you might as well roll over right now because that will be the end game. The idea that some advice given in an online forum would reduce the need for finding a lawyer is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. You have no idea what the qualifications/experience/jurisdictions are of the…

> ...is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. Listening to doctors instead of carefully reading forums would have probably left me seriously crippled. Doctors hold no real liability, nor do they have any real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain. There is no substitute for doing your own research if you want something done right.

I'm sure there is an exception to every rule.

As for doctors not having real expertise outside their (very narrow) problem domain: that's precisely why you want to see them if your problem is in that narrow domain.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#123

Post by jacquesm »

ownagefool wrote: post #115
jacquesm wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have a medical problem, you go to a doctor. If you have a legal problem, you go to a lawyer. If you can't afford a lawyer you might as well roll over right now because that will be the end game. The idea that some advice given in an online forum would reduce the need for finding a lawyer is akin to taking medical advice from a forum. You have no idea what the qualifications/experience/jurisdictions are of the…

In the US maybe. In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to. My wifes a solicitor. :)

I agree with all that, the question is whether or not you want to get your way or roll over. If you want to roll over you can do so without consulting anybody, if you want to get your way you will need to figure out what your options are going forward and that will include talking to a lawyer.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#124

Post by cryptica »

Since your project is open source, you should try to evaluate whether your employer could benefit financially from suing you to gain control of your open source project. If not, then they are less likely to do so. Also, you should factor in the PR/reputation cost to the company. If they're in the open source space anyway, it would be bad PR for them if they tried to suppress or discourage the independent open source work of their employees.

Ultimately, as the creator, it's in the best interest of the open source project and society that it remain under your control.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#125

Post by rapnie »

monocasa wrote: post #27
yolo42 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I should have thought about GPL when I released the code. But, that boat has sailed. Could they change the license later on if it is initially GPL? I'm thinking about the next project that I'll be doing so that I don't repeat the same mistake.

For the future, I would totally read Social Architecture. It's available here for free (libre and gratis), and is not long, 100 pages or so printed. https://hintjens.gitbooks.io/social-architecture/content/ A huge part of that is how to structure an open source project so that it can't be taken from the community. Basically a combo of GPL and taking community contributions without having them assign copyright to you…

Url gives 'Server not found'. Try:

https://legacy.gitbook.com/book/hintjens/social-architecture...

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#126

Post by varispeed »

Get a lawyer ASAP! When you are an employee, the employer owns all your time. There is no such thing as "spare time" or "side project on my own". That's why employer can tell you that you have to be there and then, can call you at any time and can drug test your to ensure you are 100% committed to the company. It's just modern slavery. Sure you can negotiate such clauses out, but it would be still difficult to claim ownership to anything you make "outside work". For the future - if you are entrepreneurial, create your own company and work on a b2b basis. It is much healthier and you wouldn't run to such problems (or much less likely).

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#127

Post by mattrp »

greggman2 wrote: post #39

IANAL and I'm sure this will get downvoted since people won't like what I have to say. I'd concentrate on the positive rather than the negative, that if you get to work on this project via your employer from this point on you'll be getting paid to do the thing you were doing for free. Getting paid for past work seems unlikely. You already admitted you didn't care about compensation by open sourcing the project. You w…

I have this concern too that by putting something out there without permission as an employee you may have done harm to the company. You need a lawyer. You may also want to consider hiring a coach to help you develop a voice within the corporate setting so that you can better influence the direction of products without having to build an alternative in your precious spare time. And if the company doesn’t currently have policies like described above maybe this example can be used to help shape them with your input.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#128

Post by varispeed »

cryptica wrote: post #124

Since your project is open source, you should try to evaluate whether your employer could benefit financially from suing you to gain control of your open source project. If not, then they are less likely to do so. Also, you should factor in the PR/reputation cost to the company. If they're in the open source space anyway, it would be bad PR for them if they tried to suppress or discourage the independent open source…

This assumes the employer is only motivated by money, but there may be big egos that would sink the ship just for the sake of enforcing the contract. May be delicate and ugly.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#129

Post by castwide »

ianai wrote: post #120
prox wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree with your comment. The core is that OP created something of value, in his own time. So there should be a value exchange of some sort.

Unless he’s a salary employee. In that case, he’s technically always on the clock or could be argued to be so. If you want your time to yourself then stay an hourly employee.

IANAL, but it's definitely not that simple. I've worked in salaried positions and still retained ownership of my side projects. There was also one instance where I refused to sign a NCA that threatened my IP, so YMMV.

Re: Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do?

#130

Post by austhrow743 »

jacquesm wrote: post #123
ownagefool wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US maybe. In the UK, most of my lawyer friends would tell you that lawyering up is the last course of action you want to take, as it tends to make issues more complicated, expensive and combative, though you might want to be careful what you admit / agree to. My wifes a solicitor. :)

I agree with all that, the question is whether or not you want to get your way or roll over. If you want to roll over you can do so without consulting anybody, if you want to get your way you will need to figure out what your options are going forward and that will include talking to a lawyer.

Roll over isn't the only alternative to lawyer. OP could always just say "no" and see what happens. Maybe lawyers come in to play eventually, maybe they don't.
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