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It's admirable how your employer has the contract clause excluding ownership of any work you do on your own time, on your own equipment. To me, that seems like
by lioeters 7y ago
It's admirable how your employer has the contract clause excluding ownership of any work you do on your own time, on your own equipment. To me, that seems like it should be the standard, common sense.
I noticed Dunbar's number (~150 people) is sometimes mentioned, to attempt to explain how trust in relationships break down in large corporations.
I'm curious, may I ask roughly how big your employer is?
- kabdib 7y agoIt should definitely be the standard. I agree, it should not even be worthwhile mentioning. It was still refreshing to see. We talk about Dunbar's number quite a bit, actually. We're about 2X that, enough for several tribes.
- lioeters 7y agoThank you for answering. I just saw your profile - seeing where you work, I feel a bit silly for so casually asking the question! The topic of company ownership/copyright on employee side projects seem even more relevant in the gaming industry, where - I imagine - there must be a lot of code/library reuse, common patterns and concepts, where side projects could easily overlap with products. On one hand, I can see that from a management/legal perspective, it could be difficult to justify the risk, especially as the company scales beyond tens or hundreds of Dunbar-sized social groups. My impression is that companies founded and managed by programmers tend to have respect and trust for the work being done, with understanding that life-long programmers (in contrast with those just doing it as a job) always have side projects going on - and that such projects are perfect playgrounds for learning, exploration of ideas, creativity and innovation.