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

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

qz.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 484 posts

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

#311

Post by avn2109 »

paulcole wrote: post #199
shawnee_ wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone. Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is getting clients to sign their forms: their terms usually have the word "percent" hard-coded into the contract. Rather than opening the door to hourly or fixed dollar amounts, they insist that their forms are the "standard". I heard one recently say in a public…

>I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. I don't know anything about the law so I hire a lawyer I trust. I don't know anything about buying a house so I hire a realtor I trust.

>> "... hire a realtor I trust."

To a first approximation, 0% of real estate people are trustworthy.

Doubly true in hot markets.

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

#314

Post by [deleted] »

dnautics wrote: post #301
domador wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I want to employ someone who uses their creative energy for anything except the company's business. What a thuggish company, with such a feudal view of its workers! Hopefully most companies understand that they don't own their employees outright.

I wouldn't ascribe malice. Most companies usually do it because the it's the safest way to avoid a legal fight. The more detailed and convoluted the contract becomes the more expensive and time-consuming it becomes to adjudicate. How do you decide whether a 'side-project' is related or unrelated to the work? It's easy to point out obvious cases. (E.g. "I'm a coder and I design a mini golf course for my buddy") but th…

[deleted]

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

#315

Post by tedmiston »

guelo wrote: post #265
danvasquez29 wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not arguing against there being value, but there are credit rehab companies that would have probably cost you a lot less than the realtor's commission. Many basic credit consulting services are free. I bought a home recently and work in the mortgage industry. My opinion: the buyer's agent should be a flat negotiated fee, maybe an hourly rate. There is very little that most do that the buyer can't do themselves. If th…

The seller's agents are indeed salesman but their incentives don't end up quite aligned with the seller's. For example let's say a selling agent is getting 6% on a house listed at $500k. If it sells at $500k he gets $30k, if it sells at $520k he gets $31k. If he were to get a $500k offer it probably isn't worth his time to put in a lot of extra effort to try to get that extra $1k, but to you that extra $19k is a lot…

The authors of Freakonomics wrote a whole chapter along these lines about realtor distinctives.

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

#316

Post by sytse »

sytse wrote: post #129

Kudos to GitHub for doing this. We had a lawyer look into this a long time ago and they said it wasn't possible. They managed to do it. We'll consider adopting it in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/1225

Issue were the lawyer looked at this https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/861

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

#317

Post by turc1656 »

braythwayt wrote: post #276

Once upon a time, I was looking for a job, in straightened circumstances. I found a so-so match, and since I was in danger of missing a mortgage payment, I decided to accept their offer. Pragmatism and all that. Well, I went in and picked up the documents, and told them I needed to read them before signing and returning them to the company. I looked at the IP clause, and it said the company owned anything and everyth…

"Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I want to employ someone who uses their creative energy for anything except the company's business."

Wow. That statement alone tells you everything you need to know about that person and what kind of manager they are. The fact that it was the founder is just...wow. Since it was the founder, if I was in your shoes I would have asked this fool if they took that same approach when they ever worked for someone else - that they never did a single thing that was creative outside of work. Yeah, we know the answer.

Also - "We'd never exercise that right. But we reserve the right." Don't believe that for a minute. My father once worked for a fortune 500 financial company (but he was an IT person) and his hobby was music. He self-produced an album. A little while later they let a bunch of people go who were all 40+. He declined their package so that he could sue them for what was clearly age discrimination. That company then tried to claim that everything he did in his free time was owned by the company and they counter-sued him for royalties related to album sales and public performances. Keep in mind his contract did not include any of the draconian language like what you turned down. The only thing it said was that he was an "on-call" employee who needed to make sure he was available on short notice for systems-related emergencies. So they used that to say that because he was "on-call" they therefore owned every single second of his existence.

You can't make this shit up.

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

#318

Post by tedmiston »

stronglikedan wrote: post #125
KZeillmann wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A lot of companies that pay by salary think business hours are 24/7.

Yeah, the added gray area here is a little uncomfortable. I have never seen a startup actually define what business hours are. What if you work late 2 nights a week, and then the third night on a side project. Could that be interpreted as business hours? Do business hours vary by individual?

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

#319

Post by elastic_church »

Silhouette wrote: post #306
elastic_church wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

right thats something to consider there's just so many ways around it and I'd LOVE to get some case law made just to get some unknowns clarified. Like when I contribute to an already existing open source project on company's time/resource/IP-appropriation-regime, do they get to rewrite the Apache license because one contributor had signed a contract? when running this open source software that happens to generate a t…

there's just so many ways around it That depends very much on which jurisdiction you're in. You'd be crazy to assume, without taking proper legal advice, that retrospective assignment would not stand up as part of an explicit employment contract. Like when I contribute to an already existing open source project on company's time/resource/IP-appropriation-regime If you did that without your employer's permission, then…

yes, those are possible outcomes and the cost benefit from every single one of my side projects is so much greater

and I do factor in the jurisdiction in my own personal assessments and everyone else should too

there are many circumstances where the consequences are completely opposite of what the contract says (or how their employer's actually operate, care about, or will ever find out about) and people's behavior will conform to those consequences

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

#320

Post by tedmiston »

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…

Note that it was decided in Texas. Probably the single worst place to legally deal with software IP.
Post reply on HN