4 ms·

It's not about amounts, it's about perception and policies. The idea of selling a product even remotely related to my job description to my current employer jus

It's not about amounts, it's about perception and policies. The idea of selling a product even remotely related to my job description to my current employer just sounds like a whole bag of nasty waiting to drop. What happens when you leave the company and try to increase the price to make a business out of it? Did you create a situation through the course of your employment such that the company you left is now dependent on your products? Would they have made different choices in what tool to use if it cost more at the time? Will even bringing up the idea of charging your employer cost you a lot of social capital with your supervisor and make you look like you're aiming to resign soon to work on a new project and aren't fully committed to your job? Will they expect you to offer software for a $1 indefinite license including free updates for life or not including support or upgrades? Will they balk when your support or custom features cost $200/hr and cry foul? Companies are led by MBAs. They don't want to spend money and are very good at avoiding it at your expense. Will they use their vastly larger capital to sue you for it, if indeed it is critical to them, arguing that if you felt it was useful enough to the company to sell it to them then it was part of your job responsibilities to work on it (excepting the case where you did the project prior to starting work at the company). Will you somehow be able to prove that it was done outside of work hours and relied in no way on your confidential knowledge of what the company does? It's just messy and the potential for really really messy. You might manage to pull it off, but I personally would not try this unless the case was extremely clear cut and everyone involved knew everything so that no one could retroactively claim it was done in an underhanded way. But I was a boy scout so I learned that if you aren't willing to be totally transparent in your approach you probably actually don't think it's ethical. Clearly not applicable to today's top business schools, of course...

mlyle 7y ago
> It's not about amounts, it's about perception and policies. The idea of selling a product even remotely related to my job description to my current employer just sounds like a whole bag of nasty waiting to drop. The discussion here relates to open source stuff. You give your company a bypass to the license agreement (attribution requirements, etc) in exchange for $1. That's a small business benefit, and in turn you create a clear papertrail of ownership with consideration. Yes, everyone would do this eyes wide open. You can set the terms however fits the requirements of all involved. If you leave, they are an open source user like any other. Maybe they are allowed to redistribute without attribution, etc, indefinitely. Maybe it includes giving you the right to say that <employer> is using the package. You do this when your employer already knows you tinker on open source, and a project is getting serious enough that it deserves to have its IP rights explicitly protected. > Will they use their vastly larger capital to sue you for it, if indeed it is critical to them, arguing that if you felt it was useful enough to the company to sell it to them then it was part of your job responsibilities to work on it (excepting the case where you did the project prior to starting work at the company). Will you somehow be able to prove that it was done outside of work hours and relied in no way on your confidential knowledge of what the company does? That's the whole point here-- you demonstrate that the company considered it yours at that point in time, and entered into a license agreement for it. I have been on both sides of deals like this. Not all employers will do it, but it is a not-unreasonable way to protect everyone's interests and record what the parties considered the ownership to be at the time of employment. I've also sold company-owned code to an employee for $1 and an indefinite license because we didn't want to maintain it anymore.
- neltnerb 7y ago
  I think we basically agree then. It just needs to all be transparent. There's just an awful lot of different ways things can go wrong and it's hard to know which ones will end up being relevant. I agree that it could be a good method for establishing clear separation. Just very tricky.

mlyle 7y ago

> It's not about amounts, it's about perception and policies. The idea of selling a product even remotely related to my job description to my current employer just sounds like a whole bag of nasty waiting to drop. The discussion here relates to open source stuff. You give your company a bypass to the license agreement (attribution requirements, etc) in exchange for $1. That's a small business benefit, and in turn you create a clear papertrail of ownership with consideration. Yes, everyone would do this eyes wide open. You can set the terms however fits the requirements of all involved. If you leave, they are an open source user like any other. Maybe they are allowed to redistribute without attribution, etc, indefinitely. Maybe it includes giving you the right to say that <employer> is using the package. You do this when your employer already knows you tinker on open source, and a project is getting serious enough that it deserves to have its IP rights explicitly protected. > Will they use their vastly larger capital to sue you for it, if indeed it is critical to them, arguing that if you felt it was useful enough to the company to sell it to them then it was part of your job responsibilities to work on it (excepting the case where you did the project prior to starting work at the company). Will you somehow be able to prove that it was done outside of work hours and relied in no way on your confidential knowledge of what the company does? That's the whole point here-- you demonstrate that the company considered it yours at that point in time, and entered into a license agreement for it. I have been on both sides of deals like this. Not all employers will do it, but it is a not-unreasonable way to protect everyone's interests and record what the parties considered the ownership to be at the time of employment. I've also sold company-owned code to an employee for $1 and an indefinite license because we didn't want to maintain it anymore.

neltnerb 7y ago
I think we basically agree then. It just needs to all be transparent. There's just an awful lot of different ways things can go wrong and it's hard to know which ones will end up being relevant. I agree that it could be a good method for establishing clear separation. Just very tricky.