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Developers’ side projects

joelonsoftware.com

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Re: Developers’ side projects

#251

Post by djsumdog »

dimino wrote: post #238
johnwheeler wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless of whether you are legally right, a larger company could sue you for the sake of suing, and make your life very miserable A company with resources could sue you for a number of bogus reasons if they wanted to be dicks.

Yeah but law isn't magic, you can take away their options by planning ahead.

I really disagree with this. The law is a type of magic.It's socially constructed. The idea of blind justice is sort of a fairytale. Reality shows us that some of the most powerful get away with murder while the people least able to defend themselves take plea deals rather than fight charges.

At the very least, the law is subjective:

http://khanism.org/security/legality/

Re: Developers’ side projects

#252

Post by Illniyar »

I've had to reject an offer I wanted because the IP terms were draconian (even beyond what I consider standard) and the company wouldn't badge on it. Other companies did agree to make changes to get an otherwise unacceptable contract bearable.

This situation has taught me 2 things: 1 - most developers don't care, those that do know about it, don't think it's a big deal. 2 - because it has basically become industry standard developers assume it's OK and that no one would sue them.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#253

Post by ryandrake »

tptacek wrote: post #112
alxmng wrote: post #65

> 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…

This is terribly dangerous logic exactly because it's so alluringly close to right. As I said elsewhere on the thread: the worst, most heartbreaking problems a startup can have are the kind that only become apparent after the company is successful. You screw up vesting or grants somehow. You mess up liability in a contract, or don't get any legal review at all. In almost every case, you're fine either way... ... exce…

> Just fill out the stupid invention disclosure form thingy your company almost certainly has, and quit if they give you any shit about it. It's too good a job market to take this risk in.

I'm not quite sure this is good general advice. It may work for the top 0.01% of talent in Silicon Valley who can quit their job and find another one right away, but that's not the case for the vast majority of tech folks. My company has an extremely hostile stance towards side projects, which is pretty crappy and demoralizing, but there's no way in hell I'm going to quit over it, particularly if I have nothing else lined up. Best to just put side projects on "pause" if you're working in a place you think would try to grab it.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#254

Post by webmaven »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #187

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…

> That precludes any opportunity to pursue any new ideas I would come up with.

No, it just means that the list of excluded projects needs to be amended every so often.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#255

Post by ozim »

yongjik wrote: post #219
sgentle wrote: post #189

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…

> A situation where every idea you come up with, everything you think, every last shred of creativity is owned by someone else is one of the most profoundly dystopian things I can imagine. 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…

That is a good point, people are inventing dystopian futures, where we had really dystopian past. Where people actually belonged to someone, were only fed for their work.

Where now in first world you can quit your job and try to sell your inventions or every last shred of creativity to one that offers more. It is also that if you do not like someone you do not have to sell your ideas to him, you can sell those ideas to someone you like cheaper.

Joel also wrote (I hope parent poster read the article) that as a contractor you own all the copyright by default, and it is your free will to sell it.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#256

Post by ozim »

dwaltrip wrote: post #243
yongjik wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A situation where every idea you come up with, everything you think, every last shred of creativity is owned by someone else is one of the most profoundly dystopian things I can imagine. 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…

We are currently living in the current age, not several centuries ago. Should one accept terrible medical care, as such care would be considered revolutionary a few centuries ago? Additionally, there were people back then whose intellectual output was their own and were able to do things with that output.

Joel also wrote that as a contractor you own all the copyright by default, and it is your free will to sell it. That is your choice to sign up for contract and let the company take over. If you do not want that, simply do your buisness on your own and don't look for work for someone else.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#257

Post by webmaven »

mojomark wrote: post #185

As an engineer at a defense contractor, I recently had to go through the process of having my company waive my 100% IP ownership clause so that I could work with a startup on my own time without fear of putting them in jeopardy. It took about 3 weeks to process the paperwork, and answer a lot of questions, but eventually the paperwork was signed. It only allows me to work freely with the one startup. However, the imp…

> offer inventors a profit share percentage such as 10%

Hmm. Good idea, but don't focus exclusively on profits. Many innovations aren't profitable sources of new revenue per-se, but cost reducers (which can then make other previously-ignored sources of revenue viable).

Re: Developers’ side projects

#258

Post by Asooka »

pfranz wrote: post #76
tetrep wrote: post #63

> Your game designer works for a year and invents 7 games. At the end of the year, she sues you, claiming that she owns 4 of them, because those particular games were invented between 5pm and 9am, when she wasn’t on duty. > ... > So before you hire this developer, you agree, “hey listen, I know that inventing happens all the time, and it’s impossible to prove whether you invented something while you were sitting in t…

I furrowed my brow at that example, too. He may have been simplifying or misrepresenting reality. I would think it's disingenuous that you're presenting all 7 of those games as projects done on the company time (unless there is something to insinuate you were forced to work off the clock for free--which wouldn't be different than any other kind of work). Lets say, without notifying my boss, I went on vacation and ref…

I think the standard contract should say something like "I assign copyright of and grant a licence to any patents I own pertinent to every single line of code that I create and give the company".

Re: Developers’ side projects

#260

Post by webmaven »

schwarrrtz wrote: post #200

At my last job working for a small software company, I was able to get my boss to modify the employment contract such that a specific list of other projects (attached as an appendix to the contract) was excluded from the work product & IP ownership clauses. The idea was that if I wanted to work on a side project, I would clear it with him first, and then we would sign a quick amending agreement to the original contra…

> I haven't ever tested this method in an actual legal dispute.

I have seen this method tested, and it works (modulo bad phrasing in the actual amendment).

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