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Google claims copyright on employee side projects

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Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#181

Post by jsolson »

deogeo wrote: post #147
jsolson wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe we should be happy it took google so long. If you read the thread you'll note that this policy has been around for a long time (at least the ~7 years I've been with Google). The author also notes that, in terms of open source, things have become dramatically _more_ permissive over time.

That's exactly it, isn't it? Thanks to such restrictive contracts, you need Google's permission .

I do, yes, and that Google grants that permission relatively (to some others companies) freely is a small part of why I work there. I could quit and work on whatever I want, but eventually I'd need to worry about how to pay my mortgage. I could also go work for a smaller company without such a clause in their contract, but part of what I like about my job is the resources available to tackle problems, and I'd likely lose some of that.

Employment often imposes lots of restrictions on the actions we can take. I'm fortunate enough to have some choice in the set of restrictions I have to live with, so for me this particular restriction is just part of the deal.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#182

Post by majewsky »

martius wrote: post #144
q3k wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm from my experience (~10 years in the industry). I've never even heard of this practice until I applied to Google. None of the EU companies I've worked at before had anything like this. None of the EU companies I've worked at since had anything like this. It's US imperialism, nothing less.

If I remember correctly, I had similar or worse in my employment contracts in France. Worse being "your skills are to be used exclusively for the benefit of Employer". That means that you can't do freelance work, or open source contributions. In theory, you're not even permitted to fix your parents printer.

"Honey, can you carry my shopping into the kitchen?" - "I'm sorry, my skills are to be used exclusively for the benefit of my employer."

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#183

Post by jsjohnst »

tytso wrote: post #95

Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

> This is rare, and I'm not aware of many other companies that give employees that option.

I’ve never worked for a tech company who doesn’t allow that and my list of former employers includes many household names that virtually anyone would immediately recognize.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#185

Post by voidifremoved »

q3k wrote: post #114
fierarul wrote: post #104

> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". In the US. Problem is the US is infecting the rest of the world too, especially through subsidiaries which basically just translate from English the 'standard' employment contract. I had to refuse employment in Romania since the clauses were so broad and basically i…

Can confirm from my experience (~10 years in the industry). I've never even heard of this practice until I applied to Google. None of the EU companies I've worked at before had anything like this. None of the EU companies I've worked at since had anything like this. It's US imperialism, nothing less.

I first encountered this at SCEE in 2008.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#186

Post by Aunche »

marcosdumay wrote: post #122
tytso wrote: post #95

Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". ... So anyone who think this is some evidence of Google being, or becoming, evil is either seriously misinformed, or just engaging in unthinking hate of Google, or both. The fact that every other US company is as evil does not make Google any better. The practice is…

Has Google or any other company actually used this for "evil" though? It sounds like it's just a necessary part of doing business in the US. Don't hate the player. Hate the game. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm sure rules like these make it easier to sue someone if they steal your source code like with Levandowski.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#187

Post by marcan_42 »

tytso wrote: post #95

Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

Others have already commented on how this isn't "standard" in places outside the US, so I'll focus on something else.

Ted, you're a Big Deal. You maintain ext4, you're a major kernel contributor. Of course Google is going to keep you happy, give you plenty of time to work on FOSS, and provide you with resources for it. They are paying you to work on FOSS to a large extent. The deal is they give you all this time and resources, and you slap a Google copyright on it and don't care because it's all GPLed anyway, and since you're working on this stuff at work anyway, you throw everything into the same bucket and Google owns whatever commits you make at home too.

This is entirely different from the average Google SWE/SRE, who may have a number of personal projects, and may contribute to random things, but nothing Google cares about much. Google doesn't give a damn if I stop contributing to FOSS. As an SRE, none of my work product at Google had anything to do with FOSS directly (except, like, one 20% project where I ported Linux to some vendor hardware). Google doesn't care if they force me to stop maintaining usbmuxd, which they effectively did by rejecting my IARC application (without answering my questions after it; e.g. they could've proposed going through releasing and Google copyright from then on, but they also didn't do that).

For someone like me, going through all those processes, especially in the form they existed in back when I worked there >5 years ago, was all red tape for zero benefit. Google wasn't sponsoring any of my work. Google doesn't care if I have a commit in ALSA to fix 5.1 audio on a specific Acer laptop. Google doesn't care that I made FireWire not blow up on JMicron controllers on systems with an enabled IOMMU. Google doesn't care that Pulseaudio network discovery now works properly with link-local addresses. Google wasn't paying me to do any of those things. They are just things I did in my own time, as a FOSS user, not as a Google employee. And so, it is not reasonable for Google to own that work, that I do on my own time, that has nothing to do with my job, and to then require me to go through getting permission, and to then slap a Google copyright on all my code. Copyright assignment isn't free. I had to relicense a project from GPL to LGPL recently. It was a simple matter of asking the other 2 one-off contributors and changing the license. It would not have been a simple matter if Google had owned part of the code, which they would've had they not messed up my employment contract in my favor.

Yes, other companies are worse (Apple). That doesn't mean Google gets a pass for being less-bad. It's still broken.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#188

Post by danShumway »

tytso wrote: post #95

Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time". The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". This was true when I worked for MIT, VA Linux, IBM, and Google. At VA Linux it was the VC's which insisted on…

It's absurd for any company to say they're going to attract passionate programmers, and then expect them to just roll over and give up projects that were started before they even joined at the company.

If you're Google, you can get away with this because you just throw so much money at people that they're willing to temporarily put their life on hold for 3-4 years.

But for any other company, people who are genuinely passionate about something are not going to let you dictate their entire involvement or own everything they produce. My current employer doesn't own "everything" that I produce, only projects that would present a clear conflict of interest. I don't have to be secretive, they know what I'm working on outside of my job -- not even just Open Source stuff, but even closed-source projects that I'm looking to monetize.

I would never, ever join a company that didn't (in writing) allow me to retain ownership of my side projects.

That's the tradeoff. You want your programmers to take initiative, stay up to date in the field, stay creative? You want them to be able to propose novel solutions to your problems, and think outside of the box? You have to let them go outside of the box, and do the things outside of work that keep them in that frame of mind.

If your programmers are scared to experiment outside of work, because they have to run a calculus of whether or not an idea is worth putting on hold until they can actually own it -- well then, surprise, they're not going to experiment outside of work, and your software quality will suffer for it.

People like tytso, who are effectively being sponsored by Google to work on their side projects, might be an exception. Most of your programmers will not be an exception.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#189

Post by elicash »

xibalba wrote: post #184

The extremely simple and obvious solution is to just not work at Google. The fact that people accept these agreements and then disingenuously rage against them later is utterly baffling to me.

Not sure if you read the thread, but this person's agreement allowed them to own their side projects.

Some issues are a problem across the industry. But also, more importantly, some people like to solve problems in their workplaces and make them better.

Re: Google claims copyright on employee side projects

#190

Post by marcan_42 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #118
amelius wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time". That depends. If the employee's project is in an area that is completely different from what Google is doing, then it should be clear that there is no conflict. At least the wording in the contract should reflect that possibility.

If that is the case, Google has a process for explicitly relinquishing their claim on copyright to the creator. The intent of this policy is to make it clear that creators have to go through that process if they want to use something they fabricated as a side project independently.

I tried going through that process, and they rejected one of my projects (with no followup or explanation, and without replying to my questions). That's the story I told in the OP Twitter thread. That's when I realized the process was broken.
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