211–220 of 411 posts
I find this mindset totally disgusting, but I'm glad it's been summed up in such a concise way. > Being an employee of a high tech company whose product is intellectual means that you have decided that you want to sell your intellectual output, and maybe that’s OK, and maybe it’s not, but it’s a free choice. Let's clarify that phrase, "sell your intellectual output". Keep in mind that earlier in the article we discov…
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> The courts rarely side with the company, and only in cases where it's quite obvious the work was directly related. The courts in California rarely side with the company, (so if you work on billing for Google and decide to do some machine learning on the side, even though Google does a lot of ML work no court would find in their favor -- though I doubt google would go after you anyway). But at the opposite end of th…
That doesn't fit my understanding of the law. Do you have references? The law has this concept of "duty of loyalty" which basically says by being an employee you are promising to do what's best for the company. As one example that means not competing against the company. In otherwords even if it's not related to your specific job you can not work on a product that competes with the company. https://en.m.wikipedia.org…
Do you live in California? If not, I have no idea what law applies to you and your work.
But if you live in California you are in luck: Section 2872 of the labor code is explicit in this matter. In fact every employee assignment agreement I have handed out to someone I've hired (going back to 1989) has included the text of that section, for example:
in accordance with Section 2872 of the California Labor
Code that the foregoing Agreement between you and Company does
not require you to assign or offer to assign to Company any Invention
that you develop entirely on your own time without using Company’s
equipment, supplies, facilities or trade secret information, except
for those Inventions that either:
a. Relate at the time of conception or reduction to
practice to Company’s business, or actual or demonstrably
anticipated research or development; or
b.Result from any work performed by you for Company. To the
extent a provision in the foregoing Agreement purports
to require you to assign an Invention otherwise excluded
from the preceding paragraph, the provision is against
the public policy of this state and is unenforceable.
This limited exclusion does not apply to any patent or Invention
covered by a contract between Company and the United States
or any of its agencies requiring full title to such patent
or Invention to be in the United States.
This law is widely cited as one of Silicon Valley's advantages over other places.
California went through a period of rational law making, e.g. laws like this, a presumption that drivers know what they are doing regardless of the posted speed limit, etc. Then they went insane (three strikes etc) and the rest is, sadly, history. Still not as crazy as the rest of the USA though.
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You don't quite understand Joel's point. Regardless of whether you are legally right, a larger company could sue you for the sake of suing, and make your life very miserable. And if the fight continues and you run out of money, what then? I had exactly that thing. I was being bought-out and a small client decided (against the contract that they had signed) that the changes we had made to our mortgage broker commissio…
> And when I left the company that bought me out to start another project, I made sure that I had a release to say that I'm indemnified against any future legal actions and I started the project the day after I got that release. How do you force a company to do something like that? What's in it for them to agree, especially when you're leaving?
I've been a contractor and entrepreneur for many years. I do like the higher income that I can command as a contractor, but it's also a matter of principal that any work I do on my own for my own endeavors belong to me. My current client and I have talked about going "full-time" and I've even discussed it with their legal department. The problem is they have a culture of standard employment contracts and are extremel…
> If you need the company/paycheck and don't have enough of a background to command a change in the standard employment contract, then you have to sign away all rights.
You're not signing away your rights, your signing away everyone's rights. What about the person who doesn't like to sign his rights away, but is now expected to, because some other poor person lead the way? Accepting this kind of bondage from employers means either setting a very bad precedent, or following a very bad precedent. Either way it hurts the workforce.
> Not related to your employer’s line of work. Um, wait. What’s the definition of related? [...] I don’t know. It’s a big enough ambiguity that you could drive a truck through it. No, it's not that ambiguous at all. The courts rarely side with the company, and only in cases where it's quite obvious the work was directly related. If your side project isn't directly related to the work you are doing, then you don't nee…
I hope nobody is dissuaded from working on side projects by this post. First of all, restricting contracts to only work related to the company's business is not unheard of (even outside of California). Every company I've worked at has agreed to that. Secondly, it ignores the abundant evidence that people successfully turn side projects into businesses all the time without being sued by their ex-employers. In fact, I'…
> Be mindful of Joel's bias (he's a CEO, not a developer).
And, while everyone has bias, I seriously doubt Joel and StackOverflow worry, or have any need to worry, about employee side-projects. They seem much more interested in employee retention.
Maybe the New York Times tells it best:
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/09/08/business/an-idea-not-yet-b...
The hope that one of my side projects will some day succeed, and I can leave my 9-5 is the only thing that drives me. If I said, "welp, legal" i'd die inside. Some people have church, I have side projects.
I went through a tough time when I wasn't sure if I wanted to be software engineer anymore. Working on my side projects not only made me go through that time, it made me truly happy. Reminded me why I am in this in the first place.
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I hope nobody is dissuaded from working on side projects by this post. First of all, restricting contracts to only work related to the company's business is not unheard of (even outside of California). Every company I've worked at has agreed to that. Secondly, it ignores the abundant evidence that people successfully turn side projects into businesses all the time without being sued by their ex-employers. In fact, I'…
> Be mindful of Joel's bias (he's a CEO, not a developer). Sorry, but this is ridiculous. Spolsky has built his career around promoting a good work environment for developers. After reading his blog for many years, listening to his talks and podcasts... he's either an extremely talented thespian, or one of the most conscientious people in tech. And, while everyone has bias, I seriously doubt Joel and StackOverflow wo…
I don't necessarily think this is even a conscious act on his part. It's just that if you spend decades on one side of the table, you inevitable adapt that side's biases. Every employer wants their employees focused solely on their projects.
I find this mindset totally disgusting, but I'm glad it's been summed up in such a concise way. > Being an employee of a high tech company whose product is intellectual means that you have decided that you want to sell your intellectual output, and maybe that’s OK, and maybe it’s not, but it’s a free choice. Let's clarify that phrase, "sell your intellectual output". Keep in mind that earlier in the article we discov…
That's rather overdramatic. Several centuries ago, every idea you come up with, everything you think, you could probably keep as your own because no one was interested and there was no way you could sell them and make living, even if you really wanted to, which you probably did not, because such a lifestyle was out of most people's reach.
"What are you saying you've been up to all this morning, thinking? Cut out the laziness and go feed the cows, or there will be no lunch for you!"
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Don't even tell your employer about side projects. Leave them out of the loop entirely. This depends heavily on the employer. Google, for instance, is extremely friendly towards both side projects (done entirely on your own time and with your own equipment) and open source contributions done either on or off company time. I wish more employers had the same level of transparency.
How is Google so friendly towards them?