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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

#91

Post by VLM »

superbatfish wrote: post #21

As developers, we're biased towards one view of this issue, but it's intellectually lazy of us to just say "Yeah, we deserve it! Because... fairness!" Last December, Joel Spolsky wrote about developer side projects, and honestly, he's right. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... My view: In some companies, depending on their business model, it might be reasonable to ask to own your own work…

The same plumber who installed my water heater installed my neighbors toilet so I should own my neighbors toilet.

You can't prove he wasn't thinking about his next job while he was installing my water heater so I should own that IP.

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

#92

Post by fs111 »

lsaferite wrote: post #84
fs111 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. I am pretty happy with my employment. Paid vacation, paid sick days, reasonable hours and all that good stuff.

Ok. Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. Would you still be as happy? Hell, even 50% more. And you are spreading the work across multiple clients so any one client 'firing' you is suddenly not a huge thing since your income is distributed across multiple clients. Sure, you don't get paid benefits, but you get higher income and the ability to work for multiple c…

Well that all sounds nice and dandy, but imagine you don't find new clients or they don't pay your invoices or you get seriously sick or something in your private life needs all your attention.

Employment isn't so bad in those cases.

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

#93

Post by jamesblonde »

I'm a lecturer/prof in Sweden and we have had this law for years. We own all our own IP. In other top tier Universities around the world the norm is that the university takes 20-50% of the IPR/equity. Needless to say that we are very happy with it (lärareundantag). However, a word of caution: it doesn't seem to make any difference when attracting top talent. My experience is that even in Systems Research, candidates don't factor it into their decisions. They just think - UK or Switzerland or Sweden. Because of that, i don't think it will catch on.

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

#94

Post by De_Delph »

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.

Hi from socialist Netherlands, where the issues around IP and employers are EXACTLY the same as the US.

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

#95

Post by cmiles74 »

0xfeba wrote: post #68
kutkloon7 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In think that in most countries, a large company will always win big trials. Andrew "bunnie" Huang has written a very good 2-page note on this in: http://bunniefoo.com/nostarch/HackingTheXbox_Free.pdf (first two pages, but the whole book is a good read) In the US it seems especially bad, since Americans seem exceptionally obsessed with "living the American dream" aka making a lot of money. Many people assume that if…

> Many people assume that if you have a lot of money, you must be a good person. I used to agree with that, but now politics has cleaved this into two. A) If you're a democrat/progressive (Soros, Hillary, et al.) you're corrupt, greedy, immoral. And you got all that money via ill means. They must be stupid and anti-American be B) If you're a republican (Trump, Murdoch, Ted Stevens, et al.) your earned it from picking…

I can't help being somewhat cynical and jaded on this one. I tend to think that people become wealthy through

  (1) inheritance, 
  (2) something nefarious (greed, cheating, etc.)
  (3) working hard and the equivalent of winning the lottery, being rewarded for that hard work
I believe that I could maybe relate to the people in category 3.

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

#96

Post by dabber »

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.

Wow, I'd lie if I said I wasn't worried I'd someday have to take a job like that. Was this job you applied to in the gaming space? If so, is that type of ask common place in your experience?

Also, a bit of an aside. What's the game you released called? I get you probably intended to avoid the plug but I'm curious.

Edit: And of course, props to GitHub for this!

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

#97

Post by trapperkeeper79 »

lallysingh wrote: post #80
VLM wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. Do you really want to buy into a feudalistic legacy organizational model knowing that the odds of rising up in the pyramid are approximately zero? And they're going to downsize with no loyalty if needed to bump the stock price later on. Like a decapitated chicken the company will strut around a bit randomly canceling or creating projects so you have no control ov…

Employment is lower risk. It's tougher to fire employees than contractors, so there's lower firing risk for employees. It also reduces your work overhead for stuff that HR can take care of for you (health insurance, life insurance, etc). As well as sick days. And at some places, this lets you focus on larger problems that you'd never get solved working from contract to contract.

I've seen good people get fired for what seem like purely political reason (in California). They got a month of severance but come on. My father worked for a handful of companies his entire career and had true loyalty for them. The company, in turn, took care of him his whole life. This does not exist anymore in the private sector. If your org seems to have it, I'm sorry to tell you that it might change one day (and very abruptly). I've seen this happen to places that were considered unassailable.

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

#99

Post by AstralStorm »

lsaferite wrote: post #84
fs111 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. I am pretty happy with my employment. Paid vacation, paid sick days, reasonable hours and all that good stuff.

Ok. Now imagine you are getting twice as much after taxes for the same work but without benefits. Would you still be as happy? Hell, even 50% more. And you are spreading the work across multiple clients so any one client 'firing' you is suddenly not a huge thing since your income is distributed across multiple clients. Sure, you don't get paid benefits, but you get higher income and the ability to work for multiple c…

This never happens, as there is a minimum time to create a "minimum viable work unit" and often you're paid to deliver as soon as possible, not a year later. I've never seen a contract with enough slack to make overlapping work reasonable. It is not physically possible. Might only work if you're selling templates or are a Mechanical Turk.

Generally higher income is not much higher either way, at least around here. Nobody wants to hire contractors for more than they have to pay full time employees.

You still get to pay your health insurance (typically covered by employer automatically here) and taxes.

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

#100

Post by charlesdm »

lallysingh wrote: post #80
VLM wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employment is dead, contract is the way of the future. Do you really want to buy into a feudalistic legacy organizational model knowing that the odds of rising up in the pyramid are approximately zero? And they're going to downsize with no loyalty if needed to bump the stock price later on. Like a decapitated chicken the company will strut around a bit randomly canceling or creating projects so you have no control ov…

Employment is lower risk. It's tougher to fire employees than contractors, so there's lower firing risk for employees. It also reduces your work overhead for stuff that HR can take care of for you (health insurance, life insurance, etc). As well as sick days. And at some places, this lets you focus on larger problems that you'd never get solved working from contract to contract.

This is right. Lower risk, lower reward. You'll make some money, but won't share in most of the upside.

Up to you to decide which path you want to take. Depends what you want from life.

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