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GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

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Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#41

Post by ratherbefuddled »

This is just putting into a contract what ought to be considered normal and reasonable defaults. I don't think they deserve special praise for it, rather companies that don't do this deserve criticism.

Whenever I've encountered overly grasping IP clauses in contracts I've always had them re-written so they only cover work which is done during working hours or related to . No employer has ever objected to this, they usually have just been advised by lawyers to be ultra aggressive by default. One (English) employer struck the whole clause on the basis that copyright law covered them sufficiently anyway as by default works created "in the course of employment" belonged to the employer.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#42

Post by js8 »

badminton1 wrote: post #12

Pet projects are not necessarily good for a company: 1) Code is not necessarily an asset, it is also a liability: needs to be maintained, tested, documented, etc. This has a non-trivial cost. 2) Engineer salaries are usually more expensive than a license. 3) Experience working using internal frameworks/libraries/etc can be harder to trade in the marketplace, especially if you are not the author. 4) It is hard to keep…

If you have any of the problems 1-5, I would argue you actually have a problem of management not trusting engineers enough to buy them a good and suitable existing market solution, and that's why they have to come up with something makeshift.

I agree that it happens in companies, but it's definitely not a good thing.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#43

Post by mattcantstop »

jna_sh wrote: post #7

Fwiw, I don't think this is a new thing for GitHub employees, as the headline suggests, this is some best practice that GitHub is releasing for others! At least, I've enjoyed this benefit since I joined GH earlier this year.

Agreed. In my couple years at GitHub side projects have been encouraged, not discouraged. It's been incredibly refreshing. Interestingly enough, I have worked on side projects the least at GitHub because I really enjoy my employment now and get paid a fair wage :)

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#44

Post by tgragnato »

Thrillington wrote: post #37
kutkloon7 wrote: post #22

"But rather than negotiating a deal, Alcatel fired Brown and sued him for ownership of the idea. After a seven-year-long court battle, he lost and was forced to spend three months at the company’s offices, without pay, writing out the code to implement his solution." I deeply hate the judge who made this verdict. You must be truly devoid of human feeling and common sense to explain this as a reasonable application of…

It's morally bankrupt, but legally correct.

If it's legally correct, then the law is so flawed.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#45

Post by charlesdm »

soverance wrote: post #36
uniclaude wrote: post #8

People keep complaining about how hard and expensive it is to attract top talent. This kind of measure is exactly how you do it. Provide an environment where employees feel trusted and empowered, pay market rate, screen properly instead of having applicants jump through hoops, and you won't have much trouble hiring. Kudos to github for this, I'm impressed!

For real. I am an indie game dev who recently released his first big game on Steam. Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order to hire me, I would need to sell them the entirety of my personally-developed IP and dissolve my interest in my own company. Needless to say, I decided against that job.

And one wonders why they can't hire top talent.

One the one hand, they want capable people who go out of their way to achieve results + love their craft. Guess what, that often happens by working on side projects (whether ultimately commercial or not, is irrelevant).

As an employee the only concession I would personally be willing to make would be to not compete directly with the company you're employed at. And only if you're not employed at a company doing everything, i.e. a Google or a Microsoft.

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#48

Post by KZeillmann »

soverance wrote: post #36
uniclaude wrote: post #8

People keep complaining about how hard and expensive it is to attract top talent. This kind of measure is exactly how you do it. Provide an environment where employees feel trusted and empowered, pay market rate, screen properly instead of having applicants jump through hoops, and you won't have much trouble hiring. Kudos to github for this, I'm impressed!

For real. I am an indie game dev who recently released his first big game on Steam. Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order to hire me, I would need to sell them the entirety of my personally-developed IP and dissolve my interest in my own company. Needless to say, I decided against that job.

That's an absolutely absurd request. I can understand if they said that you wouldn't be able to work on your game during business hours, or on your company machine, but to request that you dissolve your company and sell them your IP? That's insane

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#49

Post by ja30278 »

As a thought experiment, for people who agree with the idea that a company 'owns' all of the thought-output of an employee: Why should that mean only the valuable IP, and not _all_ of the thought-output, including the unpleasant parts. If an employee commits a pre-meditated murder, should the company be liable, as a partial 'thought-owner'?

Re: GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources

#50

Post by [deleted] »

pjmlp wrote: post #28
lostboys67 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sad that having even minimal employee rights is some how seen as exceptional.

From someone that is able to enjoy proper work conditions in socialist Europe, the state of work condition expectations in US is always surprising. Sometimes I get the feeling that even my own country (Portugal), with all its issues regarding work conditions, still appears to be in better shape.

[deleted]
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