I am prohibited by my employment contract from working a second job without approval. It doesn't say, of course, that I'm supposed to go home. I can go to the

I am prohibited by my employment contract from working a second job without approval. It doesn't say, of course, that I'm supposed to go home. I can go to the bar, the library, the bowling alley, whatever. But it does say that I can't hold a second paid job (and it does demand that I truthfully tell them where I live). I am very much being paid not to work a second job. Maybe you aren't! But I am, this is fairly normal for salaried positions in America, it's almost certainly enforceable, and it's something I willingly signed and accepted when I took this job. I am aware there are a large number of people working non-salaried jobs who work multiple jobs. This thread is specifically about salaried jobs. More relevantly to the thread, my contract also says that any work I do which is related to my employer's actual business is owned by my employer, whether or not I do it on work time or at work. I paid actual lawyers to review that portion of the contract before I signed it, and they told me it is absolutely enforceable. In this case, the question is whether an IBM employee can hack on an IBM-authored, IBM-maintained driver for IBM computers, contributing to which used to be part of their job on the side. It would be absolutely defensible for IBM to say they own this work regardless of when it happens, and it would be frankly surprising if the employment contract did not say that.