Ask HN: My company wants my side project. What can I do? • Hacker News Board

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

#271

Post by tyingq » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 5:42 PM UTC

yowlingcat wrote: post #264

tyingq wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Nonsense" Pretty aggressive opener. Is that really necessary? "There's no harm in letting them know they've retained one" It will, for sure, trigger an internal discussion, and maybe some defensive moves like trolling logs or making a copy of his work PC drive. For example, what do you suppose the chances are that the OP navigated to his GitHub repo from a work PC? How is advising caution in this situation "nonsense…

The only thing that's aggressive about that as an opener is if someone specifically takes offense at the suggestion of legal counsel as something you should always have if you can afford it. That's absurd. It is absolutely poor judgment to enter employment without it. If you don't have legal counsel and end up in this situation: 1) You should have had counsel earlier when you signed your agreement. You could have gon…

Your responses read like I said "you never need a lawyer". I was suggesting caution before telling your employer you retained one, for this specific situation. I think you are mixing me up with someone else. Also, replying to someone with your opening word as "Nonsense" isn't constructive.

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

#272

Post by iamcreasy » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:01 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #12

mcv wrote: post #6

Whether or not your employer can claim ownership in court depends entirely on your contract. But no matter what's in your contact, that route is probably not your best option. From what I understand, you created, in your own time, a project that is valuable to your employer, and that they want to use and develop. You're the expert on this project. Not just that, you designed every aspect of it, popularised it, and yo…

> Whether or not your employer can claim ownership in court depends entirely on your contract. Entirely this. I got burned by this years ago, developing side project that was completely unrelated to the sort of work my employer did, and was not developed using any company resources. But my employment contract specified that my employer had first rights to anything I developed at all during the term of my employment.…

> time-limited exclusive license to any side project I do that does overlap with their activities

Thank you for your answer. Could you please elaborate on this one? What does the exclusive license entails? Do you get ownership back when the time expires?

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

#273

Post by hyperman1 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

techslave wrote: post #246

yahyaheee wrote: post #224

Your employer is also a huge POS for doing this, if you know people with pull in the OSS community or software community in general you could threaten to make a stink over it. This is terrible behavior on their part.

How so? Corporations are amoral. Their job is to maximize profit. This is something of value to them, produced (presumably) under employment contract that entitles them to it. They are obligated to take ownership.

This must be the first comment where I disagree with every line in it(except the How so?)

Corporations are as moral or amoral as their leadership wants. Your average small bakery better has some good standing in a community, so it better behaves reasonably.

Their job is to keep existing, hence making some profit. That can be just enough or maximal, again depending on the wishes of the owners.

The long term value of the OSS community relationship might be more valuable than just grabbing the project. The law might explicitly not entitle them to grab it.

They can try to take ownership but are not at all obliged.

In fact the psychopatic behaviour of todays megacorps is unravelling the fabric of the societies that enable their existence.

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

#274

Post by iamcreasy » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:03 PM UTC

brabel wrote: post #100

yolo42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, this realization is hitting me slowly.

My number 1 rule when it comes to side projects is to never create something closely related to my employer's business. As an employee, if you put a lot of your business and technical knowledge (that was acquired while on the job) on a large side project effort without your employer's consent, you're playing with fire, because you may be transferring business advantage from your employer to the outside world, includi…

Could you please link an article that talks about what happened with the Nginx author?

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

#275

Post by rongenre » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:18 PM UTC

Visit a lawyer. It'll be a couple hundred $. Ask them to explain what your rights are - it's not just what's in the contract, it's how it'd be interpreted under applicable law, and you have to do a cost/benefit in terms of cost of exercising your rights vs. how valuable it is.

If a couple hundred is too much, you just did the cost/benefit and decided it's not worth it.

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

#276

Post by demosito666 » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:30 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #266

rodw wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Talk to a lawyer" is the best answer to something like this Agreed. That's probably the best advice for any non-trivial legal issue or question. I hope no one read my answer as contradicting that. That said, is there _any_ example, in _any_ jurisdiction where a court has upheld an employer's right to IP that meets those three criteria (employee's own time, own equipment and unrelated to the employers business)? I…

> court has upheld an employer's right to IP that meets those three criteria (employee's own time, own equipment and unrelated to the employers business) Yes. There are places where either by statute or by the employment contract, anything the employee creates belongs to the employer. The underlying concept is that the employer created an environment where the employee was able to learn and be inspired. I know person…

This seems just crazy, is there really an example of this?

Does this also mean that if a programmer will write a song at weekend, his employer will have the copyright? Because I see no difference.

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

#277

Post by iudqnolq » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 6:41 PM UTC

runninganyways wrote: post #179

naniwaduni wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like it'd be a pretty bad idea on the paralegal's part to take the gig.

Why is that?

And even if you found a paralegal willing to break the law, you'd either get an idiot who can't get a job anywhere or have to pay a lot more than $5

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

#278

Post by CubicsRube » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 7:49 PM UTC

iamcreasy wrote: post #274

brabel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My number 1 rule when it comes to side projects is to never create something closely related to my employer's business. As an employee, if you put a lot of your business and technical knowledge (that was acquired while on the job) on a large side project effort without your employer's consent, you're playing with fire, because you may be transferring business advantage from your employer to the outside world, includi…

Could you please link an article that talks about what happened with the Nginx author?

Plenty of articles. Search for "nginx office raid".

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

#279

Post by fao_ » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:12 PM UTC

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. :)

> 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.

In the UK you're entitled to 1 hour of free legal aid, so it's hardly expensive to consult with one who can direct you to the right person and place.

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

#280

Post by RangerScience » Sat, Dec 14, 2019, 8:17 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #60

Are you covered by California laws? IANAL / AFAIK, CA considers a) if you live in CA, B) if the company is based in CA, C) if most of the actual work was done in CA. There are special, state-wide rights that you have in CA that you cannot sign away, some of which apply to work like this.

What's with the downvotes? CA's position on non-competes - including when Californa law applies - can be read about here: https://www.upcounsel.com/non-compete-california

and the invention-assignment stuff is even more direct, here: https://thebusinessprofessor.com/knowledge-base/california-l...