5 ms·

Specifically at Google, you must submit work-unrelated open source submissions through Google legal; though they seem to be fairly quick with it.

zaphar 10y ago
Google has a painless and usually very fast process for this. It's done on a project by project basis and gives the developer a certain amount of peace of mind. There is a separate process for non OSS work as well. Or at least there was when I was there a couple of years ago.
- wfunction 10y ago
  How often do they give it the OK?
  - snoman 10y ago
    It's directly proportional to how unprofitable they think the idea is. [/snark]
  - zaphar 10y ago
    I never had any problem getting the ok but everyone's experience will be different depending on a number of factors. It's useful to know up front either way though.
ChuckMcM 10y ago
When I was there I submitted three, every time they came back and said that they wouldn't sign off because it was related. The last one was an iOS only kitchen timer application. It was at that point I was was convinced that emailing legal to ask permission was a hack to get you to disclose early what you were working on so that when they sued you they already had some of the initial leg work done :-(. I consulted with an attorney on this and they advised me that because I was working in California the burden of proof that it was related to Google's business was on Google. But that in his experience they were not above pushing the edge of the definition. The bigger point though was that people don't work at companies that are suing them and generally don't work at any company if they have a reputation (real or imagined) of doing work on their own time that is "against" their employers interest. The summary of his advice was never, under any circumstances, work on any project you don't want to give Google ownership of while you are employed there. And when you have an idea that you want to develop, quit so that those parts of your employment agreement are nullified. They can still come after you if they think you are using "proprietary or confidential" information in your new effort but that is less common and it makes them look like the bad guys not you.
- lerpa 10y ago
  So you are paid to work a fixed number of hours, but in exchange they own you for the other hours you're not even there. And I thought only backwards people from the South enjoyed that line of "business".
  - sctb 10y ago
    > Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
chris_7 10y ago
This seems insane. I make tiny pull requests all of the time - sometimes it's just a documentation typo fix! If you're a Google, you need to send those through a lawyer, or you'll (I assume) get fired? Ignoring the intrusion, that's a good use of Google's expensive lawyer time?

zaphar 10y ago

Google has a painless and usually very fast process for this. It's done on a project by project basis and gives the developer a certain amount of peace of mind. There is a separate process for non OSS work as well. Or at least there was when I was there a couple of years ago.

wfunction 10y ago
How often do they give it the OK?
- snoman 10y ago
  It's directly proportional to how unprofitable they think the idea is. [/snark]
- zaphar 10y ago
  I never had any problem getting the ok but everyone's experience will be different depending on a number of factors. It's useful to know up front either way though.

ChuckMcM 10y ago

When I was there I submitted three, every time they came back and said that they wouldn't sign off because it was related. The last one was an iOS only kitchen timer application. It was at that point I was was convinced that emailing legal to ask permission was a hack to get you to disclose early what you were working on so that when they sued you they already had some of the initial leg work done :-(. I consulted with an attorney on this and they advised me that because I was working in California the burden of proof that it was related to Google's business was on Google. But that in his experience they were not above pushing the edge of the definition. The bigger point though was that people don't work at companies that are suing them and generally don't work at any company if they have a reputation (real or imagined) of doing work on their own time that is "against" their employers interest. The summary of his advice was never, under any circumstances, work on any project you don't want to give Google ownership of while you are employed there. And when you have an idea that you want to develop, quit so that those parts of your employment agreement are nullified. They can still come after you if they think you are using "proprietary or confidential" information in your new effort but that is less common and it makes them look like the bad guys not you.

lerpa 10y ago
So you are paid to work a fixed number of hours, but in exchange they own you for the other hours you're not even there. And I thought only backwards people from the South enjoyed that line of "business".
- sctb 10y ago
  > Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say about them. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

chris_7 10y ago

This seems insane. I make tiny pull requests all of the time - sometimes it's just a documentation typo fix! If you're a Google, you need to send those through a lawyer, or you'll (I assume) get fired? Ignoring the intrusion, that's a good use of Google's expensive lawyer time?