Developers’ side projects • Hacker News Board

Re: Developers’ side projects

#341

Post by joeljumpedshark » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

Joel is both asserting that a particular state of affairs presently exists that quite likely doesn't--specifically that employers have a strong rather than tenuous legal claim to all side projects produced by their developers due to the vagueness of the relatedness clause of the California law and the contracts incorporating it--and also attempting to convince his readers, most of whom are developers, that this is entirely appropriate and that they should just accept it as a normal consequence of salaried employment.

This really does change my opinion of both Joel and FogCreek, and certainly for the worse. I wonder, did FogCreek actually prevent Ted Unangst from contributing to OpenBSD as a side project while he was with them? If so, that's horrible. And how much have FogCreek, StackOverflow, and other companies that seek to greedily arrogate the entire creative output of their employees benefited from open source software began and continued as the very side projects this blog post cautions against? Utterly hypocritical.

I second the call of another poster: we need a professional association (union) of the kind that lawyers, doctors, and dentists have. IEEE and ACM could easily function as such, and in fact, they already provide many of the same practice standardization and continuing education functions that other professional associations do. All that's missing is the rent-seeking behavior to ensure we earn what we're worth and keep employers like Joel honest.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#342

Post by jimnotgym » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

maerF0x0 wrote: post #4

This 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 project got the signature from the wrong entity.

IANAL but... i believe (in the UK so presumably other common law jurisdiction like the US) the idea of agency solves this. If you sign that contract on behalf of your employer, the other party has the right to assume that you are authorised to sign and the contract is sound. The fact you just gave away something that belongs to your employer is now an issue between you and your employer. I would struggle to see how this could get beyond an employee disciplinary process unless it could be shown that the employee was showing some kind of intent in deliberately leaking secrets they knew they should not leak.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#343

Post by zaphar » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 5:20 PM UTC

wfunction wrote: post #203

zaphar wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google has a painless and usually very fast process for this. It's done on a project by project basis and gives the developer a certain amount of peace of mind. There is a separate process for non OSS work as well. Or at least there was when I was there a couple of years ago.

How often do they give it the OK?

I never had any problem getting the ok but everyone's experience will be different depending on a number of factors. It's useful to know up front either way though.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#344

Post by max_ » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:21 PM UTC

WOW! I like the new layout! :)

Re: Developers’ side projects

#345

Post by walshemj » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:29 PM UTC

solatic wrote: post #318

walshemj wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is to stop an employee cloning his work and signing it with his key

There isn't, but remember, the whole point of signing something is to put it out there in the open. If an employee grabs older work, signs it with his personal-project key, and then tried to sue the employer for using code which belonged to him, then the employer could easily show a court the timestamps/logs which prove that the code was originally signed over to the employer and thus belonged to the employer under c…

I meant they recreated the company's work (not physically copied)but signed it with there key

Re: Developers’ side projects

#346

Post by ChicagoDave » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

webmaven wrote: post #254

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.

I asked if it were possible to amend the employment contract and they said, "you'd have to quit and re-apply".

Re: Developers’ side projects

#347

Post by tptacek » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:33 PM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #253

tptacek wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 compa…

So I understand exactly what you're saying, but I'm not sure you've thought this through: a company that is openly hostile to side projects is likely to be the worst case scenario when it comes to the commercialization of side projects that weren't disclosed to it.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#348

Post by zenlikethat » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

Tharkun wrote: post #324

ImTalking wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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? Don't work for companies that are dicks. If there's crap about them wanting to own you or your thoughts, don't sign it and get a different job elsewhere. Remember when little kids…

> Don't work for companies that are dicks. If there's crap about them wanting to own you or your thoughts, don't sign it and get a different job elsewhere.

That's Joel's whole point, almost every single company had these restrictions written into your contract. And it's not possible to know if they're "the nice ones" who won't sue you ahead of time.

Re: Developers’ side projects

#349

Post by Lewton » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #315

Lewton wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of naïveté about the legal system is dangerous. I know someone who spent 4 years of his life in court in a case where he was obviously in the right But every time he won, it was escalated to a higher court and it ended up costing him several magnitudes more than the sum the case was about ($10k, yes, seriously) Just the opportunity cost lost due to spending 4 years in litigation is insane in itself This was…

Presumably, in most systems, the loser pays all (legal) costs for both sides at least.

the cost involved was not in legal costs

Time spent preparing (four years, preparing for three different court cases in the three different circuits)

high paying job offers that fell through because of the uncertainty involved

Living under constant stress for four years straight

I wouldn't even dare to put a number on this

Re: Developers’ side projects

#350

Post by Lewton » Sat, Dec 10, 2016, 6:43 PM UTC

alkonaut wrote: post #315

Lewton wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of naïveté about the legal system is dangerous. I know someone who spent 4 years of his life in court in a case where he was obviously in the right But every time he won, it was escalated to a higher court and it ended up costing him several magnitudes more than the sum the case was about ($10k, yes, seriously) Just the opportunity cost lost due to spending 4 years in litigation is insane in itself This was…

Presumably, in most systems, the loser pays all (legal) costs for both sides at least.

the cost involved was not in legal costs

Time spent preparing (four years, preparing for three different court cases in the three different circuits)

high paying job offers that fell through because of the uncertainty involved

Living under constant stress for four years straight

I wouldn't even dare to put a number on this