Developers’ side projects
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Developers’ side projects
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Re: Developers’ side projects
#2this is an absurd agreement, i have never heard of something like this in germany. Is this common in other countries?
Re: Developers’ side projects
#3this is an absurd agreement, i have never heard of something like this in germany. Is this common in other countries?
I have heard its common in Canada too
Re: Developers’ side projects
#4This gets super muddied when you consider doing FOSS contributions as part of your work. Sure you can sign a contributor agreement, but its not yours to give away. The employer owns the code you contributed to a FOSS project. The project got the signature from the wrong entity.
Re: Developers’ side projects
#5this is an absurd agreement, i have never heard of something like this in germany. Is this common in other countries?
In France I had a separation in my contract, but I had to disclose and propose to sell my inventions to my employer first.
Re: Developers’ side projects
#6this is an absurd agreement, i have never heard of something like this in germany. Is this common in other countries?
US employee here - I've signed one (plus a patents & inventions at one firm) at every firm I've worked at since 2000 or so. Thus far any side projects haven't been a problem for them, as I have made sure to target a different industry. But legally, they could have enforced the contract and taken possession of my code.
Re: Developers’ side projects
#7this is an absurd agreement, i have never heard of something like this in germany. Is this common in other countries?
Wait until you hear about non-compete agreements and such.
Re: Developers’ side projects
#8This gets super muddied when you consider doing FOSS contributions as part of your work. Sure you can sign a contributor agreement, but its not yours to give away. The employer owns the code you contributed to a FOSS project. The project got the signature from the wrong entity.
> The employer owns the code you contributed to a FOSS project.
I think this is a pretty US-only type thing; at least it's not very common in Europe. Usually (in Europe) ownership of code depends entirely on when you did the coding -- if it's on your own time you own the code. If it's when you're at work then obviously it's the company's code. Of course there are the usual caveats about "is it too closely related to work code?", etc. but if it's a totally different area of business, then you should be fine. There may be differences between employers, but even if employers explicitly specify the "we own everything" clause you can usually get specific exemptions as long as you ask in advance.[1]
[1] I don't know if there's any legal theory (in Europe) to support the claim of ownership over everything you do, but Europe is pretty fragmented when it comes to law, so it's probably pointless to speculate on this point. I'm actually not sure if the "we own everything" clause would hold (or has held) up in court in any European country.
Re: Developers’ side projects
#9this is an absurd agreement, i have never heard of something like this in germany. Is this common in other countries?
It is common in the US, yes. I've signed a few over the years. I always check the wording of the restrictions to be sure my side projects are clear. And most of the time, the legal counsel for your employer will let you explicitly add on projects as being excluded form the agreement, so you can continue to work on open source projects or prior inventions without having to worry about it.
I definitely recommend that people consult an attorney if they are concerned about the specifics of their own contract. The details of each situation can be quite different.
Re: Developers’ side projects
#10I haven't heard about many disputed cases. I'd hope that if Google went around suing for possession of unrelated side projects, we'd hear about it.
Maybe the possibility of being publicly shamed is a deterrent from pursing ownership.