Is this really a problem outside the US? I have never encountered a "any code you write while employed belongs to the company" clause outside the US, and I don'

Is this really a problem outside the US? I have never encountered a "any code you write while employed belongs to the company" clause outside the US, and I don't think it would be valid in any European country. IANAL, of course, but I find the thought ridiculous. An employer buys work hours, not my life. If I want to hack on Open Source in the evening (or whenever, off-work), that's my prerogative. Noncompetition clauses might be a larger problem, but that's also pretty simple to spot. The best employers have you develop code to solve their problems, and then let you open source it, anyway.