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HN may find this unpalatable, but it’s still legal and permissible. Apple indicates this restriction against personal project work prior to hiring, and employe
by floatingatoll 7y ago
HN may find this unpalatable, but it’s still legal and permissible.
Apple indicates this restriction against personal project work prior to hiring, and employees agree as part of being hired to adhere to it. If they do not, they are not hired.
Non-compete bans are generally structured to prohibit restricting an ex-employee’s choice of work after their departure, but only once you are an ex-employee and not before. I am aware of no laws guaranteeing the inalienable right to create and publish software IP while contractually bound not to do so.
Apple’s restriction does not prohibit contribution of work to open-source projects, but permits only those contributions approved by Apple as necessary and appropriate by Apple’s decision. The personal projects linked here were either denied that permission or never submitted for it.
Personally, I’d have to think quite hard about whether to accept this restriction if I considered working for Apple someday. Silver lining, my tiny projects are all unused abandonware, so it wouldn’t require finding new maintainers. I don’t envy the author of the linked tweet their duty to find others.
- himinlomax 7y ago> HN may find this unpalatable, but it’s still legal and permissible. It's obviously legal and for obvious reasons, but it's both hostile to the culture of the profession at large AND counterproductive.
- floatingatoll 7y agoIt's not obviously legal. Highlights from today's discussion here indicate some confusion about that point: > Being the status quo for technical companies doesn't make it legal > Is that even legal? > That position, legally enforceable or otherwise
- woodrowbarlow 7y agoit is not obvious. the law in question (for california) is CA labor code 2870. https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2870-2872/2870 https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/... the law says that employers cannot claim ownership of inventions made without work resources, even if the employee signed such a clause, unless the invention is in competition with the employer.
- nomel 7y ago> unless the invention is in competition with the employer. Companies like Google, Apple, and Amazon work on all sorts of projects. I don't think it's possible to know what is actually in competition with companies like this, at any given time. This is probably why most require permission. With somewhere like Apple, where everything is kept secret, asking and being told no would confirm the existence of a project.
- paxys 7y agoLiterally no one in this discussion has called it illegal, so who/what are you replying to?
- floatingatoll 7y agoIt’s a top-level comment, it’s not a reply to anyone.