Bumble claims IP rights on employee's open-source libs • Hacker News Board

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

#321

Post by brundolf » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

twox2 wrote: post #317

brundolf wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I work at a startup that had a similar clause. During hiring, I asked them to add some language that it was specific only to work that is competing in nature with the core business. CEO was happy to oblige. No issues with me doing side projects so far. It has been 4+ years. Big companies probably suck harder though.

Yeah, I did work at one tiny startup previously and the CEO there also happily obliged

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

#322

Post by s1artibartfast » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 4:30 PM UTC

yawnxyz wrote: post #312

I have a slightly unrelated question and I'm in need of advice: I'm about to work on a grant, with another PI at University of Sydney for a project we've worked on for four years. This grant is to advance our mission of building software system for supporting personalized bacteriophage therapy. Essentially, we're building software to make personalized therapy possible in this space, so we're building something critic…

Sounds like a tricky situation with respect to the visa. In my experience, it is pretty common for universities to operate in this way.

The default position from legal teams ( uni or corporate) will always be to own everything.

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

#323

Post by brundolf » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 4:34 PM UTC

randomswede wrote: post #297

stavros wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thirded, I would never knowingly work for a company with a clause like that. Whenever I see it, I strike it out and return the signed contract. Usually it's easier for them to just sign and get it over with than to go into a whole thing with legal. This is startups, though. YMMV with big companies. Still, no way I'd accept them owning my considerable volume of (FOSS) side-projects.

I applied for a job as a network engineer with a (then large) UK ISP that had a "we will own all your IP", managed to negotiate that to "I keep anything done on my kit, on my time" (which is fair, I think). Then the ISP was acquired, we were promised that all extra contract negotiations would be honoured, but it seems my contract amendment was in one of a few boxes that somehow did not make it across. Cue an exciting…

Yes this was how the original contracts (and amendments) were in my original anecdotes. The purview over my non-tech projects was actually more disturbing to me than the tech projects. Creativity is a vital part of my life; I cannot be alive when it has a pall cast over it 24/7.

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

#324

Post by castrojr913 » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #140

notacoward wrote: post #115

I worked for a company once that had this sort of "we own everything" IP clause. They tried to get me to sign it after I had already started. I crossed out that part, initialed the change, and sent it back unsigned. Ended up going back and forth a few times, and then it got dropped behind a desk or something and we all forgot about it. Not surprisingly, I suppose, that company turned out to be a bit of a mess for oth…

> I worked for a company once that had this sort of "we own everything" IP clause. To clarify: Bumble doesn't appear to be going after everything this developer produced while working for them. They're claiming ownership of only two specific repos, both of which even mention that they were "inspired by" Badoo/Bumble open-source projects. These two repos were developed while the developer was working for Badoo/Bumble…

I really hate this draconian attitude of these sort of companies. I think these 'brilliant' lawyers, experts in putting on abusive clauses, also ought to making the software for these companies. There is still a lot of work to do with OSS philosophy for software industry.

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

#325

Post by questiondev » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

never worked for a tech company outside of projects or contracts i’ve done for people i know and my own ventures (small ventures), i’ve coded since i was 9 years old, started out in BASIC then took up pascal but now code (or script) javascript/react and have been looking into firms to work for, the stuff that was brought up to me made me feel like i have to protect my off the clock source code. the only reason why i was looking into working for someone else was to raise enough money to finish bootstrapping an unrelated startup. looks like my fears are valid

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

#326

Post by game_the0ry » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

UPDATE - twitter/@arkann1985 was just hired by Google [1]. Well done, Arkaddii, and fuck you to Bumble.

[1] https://twitter.com/arkann1985/status/1467914399381925888

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

#327

Post by Ericson2314 » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

neltnerb wrote: post #319

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind that this labour that's considered utself shortage, overpayed and somewhat 'elite'. Most devs thing standard issues of labour don't apply to them. Yet we can barely get a useless clause changed in a contract

Honestly my main hope is that junior devs of ten years ago have had to put up with this long enough that they're senior enough now to stick up for the direct reports they perhaps have now. Of course, it's far more common to develop the attitude that if it was "standard" when they were junior and they turned out alright then surely it's fine. And for 99% of them it will have turned out fine. I've repeatedly heard from…

In general, The training of engineers profoundly lacks in instilling skepticism. Whatever snark / cynicism is popular in places like this has nothing to do with our formal training (for those of us that were formal trained).

This example is rightly absurd because if someone told me "don't worry about that code that will segfault, it's never actually called", I would naturally say "WTF this is unacceptable complacency". And yet the argument in both situations is damn near identical!

I think this no good at all, and when the humanities people bring up STEM credulousness, I am quite sympathetic.

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

#328

Post by some-more-info » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 7:46 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #139

marcinzm wrote: post #78

A note to Bumble, this makes me not want to work for you or anyone who is currently in a related leadership position at Bumble (ie: eng leadership, etc.). Given the lack of supply in engineering the bad publicity is going to cost you more than any miniscule gain. edit: And I don't even publish OSS anymore but if you're willing to go after an employee for something this petty what else would you go after them for.

> but if you're willing to go after an employee for something this petty After reading more closely, it appears both repos are derivative works of pojects that Bumble (aka Badoo) owns. It says so in the README.md. They were also written while the author was employed by Badoo/Bumble. I don't think this is as clear-cut in favor of the developer as the comments would suggest.

It also appears that the original tweet about Badoo asking for the repositories has since been deleted.

I wonder what the implications are, and what else there will be to know on this case later.

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

#329

Post by _6lik » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 8:43 PM UTC

leeoniya wrote: post #316

_6lik wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't have money for that. May be an IP attorney here on HN can help us out?!

> Don't have money for that. and how about money to defend a potential lawsuit? you're gambling with more than just your job, honestly.

Thanks for the tip. I ended up consulting a friend of mine (an attorney specialising in company law and ipr) yesterday and it turns out what I'm doing is perfectly legal and foolproof. So all's well.

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

#330

Post by _6lik » Mon, Dec 06, 2021, 9:09 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #315

_6lik wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d like to differ. The foundation of my strategy is that I shouldn’t be obligated to run every code I write with my company legal. On the contrary, the simple reason that my code is generic absolves me from having to consult my company for anything I decide to write in my own time on my own property. I'm never going to say “I 'took' it because I thought I might use it later”. That clearly implies theft. My reasoning…

> Nevertheless, I think we have our separate approaches and I think we can agree to disagree. That's not how the law works. You're either right that your solution works or you're wrong. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm warning you that you really need to talk to an attorney before assuming that this practice will keep you safe.

By that, I just meant that you're not addressing my points and just arguing aimlessly with cherry-picked snippets from my comments so I just wanted to kill this discussion in a civilised manner.

> That's not how the law works.

Oh, this is how the law works. Unlike programming, there's never a hard right or wrong.

> you really need to talk to an attorney

that's not what you said earlier. your idea is that I should run it through my company's legal for everything I do. Let me enlighten you what will happen next. They will simply summarily reject my request and put me on a watchlist. Consult your company legal only if you need to keep written evidence for your defense. For any advise, always consult an attorney from outside.

Anyway, after getting all feedback from other comments in this thread, I did decide to run this with a lawyer and after a good and pretty long discussion and going through all my stuff, he is pretty satisfied with my setup. In fact, some of the things I did are an overkill! Wouldn't say it would work for you too as the laws of the land from where you come from might be wildly different.