Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 339 posts

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#251

Post by ghaff »

bitwize wrote: post #219
cassianoleal wrote: post #82

Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…

I once took a job and on my first day they gave me an employment contract, one clause of which stated that I would grant the company rights to use my name, voice, and likeness "for marketing purposes". I said hell to the no. I was prepared to walk out rather than sign that. Thankfully they drew up another contract om the spot with that bit removed. Not so thankfully, they dropped me before I could actually prove myse…

That sort of thing is routine if you speak at events etc. I don't recall ever seeing it in one of the few employment contracts I've seen but companies quite commonly use employee quotes/photos/etc. to put a face on the company and, whether or not it was in a contract, most employers would probably assume it was part of the job at some level.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#253

Post by _odey »

throwawayboise wrote: post #214
_odey wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is great, Thank You! "which relate to, or are reasonably capable of being used in, the business of the Company or any Group Company" sounds like a good phrasing to me, especially the "business" part of it as I interpret it to be the company simply wanting you to not build a competing product while employed there (a fair thing to have in a contract). For reference, this is what my last contract had: https://news.…

> as I interpret it What matters is how a judge will interpret it, if it should become an issue.

It definitely matters how I interpret it as I'm one of the parties signing it.

The judge comes in when there is a disagreement on the interpretations, which means I have to state what makes my position stand and bring arguments. With a clause that states "the company owns all", I have no arguments I can come up with, but with the one in the post above, I can at least come up with the reson that "it falls outside that clause written here in the contract".

It might be, or not be enough, but at least I have one thing I can use to my advantage and not make a fool of myself in court.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#254

Post by White_Wolf »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #157
AlexCoventry wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They say they're "inspired by" Badoo libraries. That's not enough to call them derivative works, at least for copyright purposes.

Right! But they were developed while the author was working for Badoo/Bumble. You can't develop something "inspired by" your day job, while working the day job in parallel, and then claim it isn't related to the day job.

You can, as long as what you are working on was already by management internally. Otherwise... you're right. Would only bring problems if/when someone is set on making your life hard.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#255

Post by INTPenis »

cassianoleal wrote: post #82

Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…

Have to add my own anecdote to yours because this type of shifty behaviour is apparently common.

I was not hired as a developer, more like devops. But I ended up creating a lot of code. And through sheer principle I did it all open source. Created public repos of everything and then private branches for our internal Git.

Fast forward 7-8 years and we're using our parent orgs system to manage salary, vacation and stuff like that.

My manager wants me to approve something in this new system so I login and I'm greeted with a new employee contract.

The system says I have to sign this to proceed, and in this country we have digital identities so signing it would be as simple as taking out my mobile phone, starting an eID app, challenge, response, code, voilá signed.

Luckily I became very suspicious, downloaded the PDF version instead of signing it. Read it carefully, showed friends who are in the business.

Turns out it was the exact same clause, everything I create, on or off hours, belongs to parent org.

I simply refused to sign it and since I was already hired from a previous contract they removed the requirement from the system so I could proceed.

Now I believe this was a simple case of Hanlon's razor, but damn it would have caught a lot of less vigilant people.

And to be fair, I have nothing against keeping certain code private. If my employer tells me that a project cannot be open source then I will comply. But by default anything I write is open source unless anyone requests otherwise, or I consider it a bad idea due to some reason that is usually about security.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#256

Post by _6lik »

leeoniya wrote: post #235
_6lik wrote: post #228

This thing has been bugging me the first time signed an employment contract years ago. So from what I understand is that everything I do on conpany property (that includes coding in a pub but on the company laptop) belongs to the company. So what I do is to first code it (any new idea that I'm working on) at home on my personal setup (including cloud an all). Then I release everything on a Apache V2 + MIT combo with…

you really should check with an attorney. to me this doesn't pass the sniff test. i work for an open source (AGPL) company, that uses one of my open source (MIT) projects as a core dependency. before i joined, i made sure that any code i write for my library continues to be MIT-licensed, no matter when and where i am writing it. additional code i write for the company also often starts out as a demo/PoC in my MIT rep…

Actually that's why I release the code on Apache/MIT combo. This way, I get to keep my code open source without forcing my company to release the modified code. Also there are no patent related issues as Apache handles that beautifully. This way, both of us get to be happy. All I want is that the original piece of my code is 1) mine for ever. Attribution wise. 2) open source for ever 3) every contributor to the code is always attributed for their work. 4) my company can make proprietary (the reason why I avoid LGPL) profits and take royalty on its modified part but my original piece must remain in the wild for me or anybody to be used freely.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#257

Post by therealdrag0 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #82

Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…

It’s much easier when you can resist in numbers. I worked at a company that tried to get existing employees to sign a new contract like this abs we were all like naw. After multiple meetings and negotiations they scrapped it and narrowed it down to certain high level employees and sales.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#258

Post by _6lik »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #238
_6lik wrote: post #228

This thing has been bugging me the first time signed an employment contract years ago. So from what I understand is that everything I do on conpany property (that includes coding in a pub but on the company laptop) belongs to the company. So what I do is to first code it (any new idea that I'm working on) at home on my personal setup (including cloud an all). Then I release everything on a Apache V2 + MIT combo with…

That sounds like the standard employment contract; not necessarily the "shower clause." It makes sense that the employer (or contractee) can claim that all work, done on their paid time, or on their equipment, is theirs. i.e., if I use my employers' laptop to develop OS software, and they can prove it, then they have a strong (and, basically, legit) claim on my work. Same with time that I'm being paid for, and suppos…

Oh, did not realise that. thanks for the clarification.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#259

Post by b8 »

cassianoleal wrote: post #82

Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…

Most tech companies in the US require for their employees to give their IP rights away. Apple has been known in to do this, but I remember reading about a Apple employee releasing a app he made under his S.O's account to bypass his agreement.

Re: Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs

#260

Post by willhinsa »

brundolf wrote: post #224
cassianoleal wrote: post #82

Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I'd be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them. They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first…

To add an anecdote: on my last job search I got offers from two different but very similar companies (both around ~200 people). I got one first, read through the contract, saw the standard clause about owning your whole life. I told them it was a deal-breaker if we couldn't get it changed. I got the standard response "oh we never act on that, lots of people here have side-projects", etc. I told them if that was the p…

Thank you for sharing those anecdotes. Holding out seems like the right thing to do, game theory wise. Plus, it just feels right to me.

P.S. I really enjoyed your website. I'm a type 1 and 3 mix myself :)

Post reply on HN