4 ms·

Just to double check, if you are developing a project in the evening at your own - Google still owns it(How does it work under CA law)? How about other FAANGs?

mjg59 5y ago
If you're in the US, Google claims that they own it (even in California, where local law means they can only do so if it "Relate[s] at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer" - they asserted ownership of a Linux driver I wrote on my own time for hardware produced by a company that went out of business before Google even existed). Google's actually better than many though - there's a process to release your code under an open source license (although with Google's copyright), you can contribute patches to third party open source projects without additional permission (again, under Google's copyright), and you can request that Google assign copyright for a personal project back to you. My understanding is that Apple basically forbid all of this outright. I'm not sure what the situation is at Amazon or Netflix.
- why_only_15 5y ago
  two years ago at an apple all hands someone asked craig federighi about this and he more or less said "i know you all hate this {we get a lot of questions about this issue}... but for legal reasons we're not going to change it."
- tylerhou 5y ago
  There is also an IARC process that grants you the copyright if you get approval. https://opensource.google/docs/iarc/ https://opensource.google/docs/iarc/
- OJFord 5y ago
  What does it mean to contribute to third party OSS (that has whatever X licence) under Google's copyright? That the project owners couldn't change licence (and keep that code) without Google's consent? Is this why some (/all of a certain size or commerce) worry about CLAs?
  - mjg59 5y ago
    Google remains the copyright holder of the submitted patch. There's nothing special in this from the project's perspective - in the absence of copyright assignment as a required part of patch submission, the default is that the submitter retains copyright. In this case, it's just Google claiming ownership of their employee's patch rather than the employee holding the copyright.
bagels 5y ago
In California, if you're doing it with your own resources, and handwavey it's not related to something that Google is having you work on, it's yours. That doesn't mean that they won't try to sue you though.
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
Microsoft has the most permissive moonlighting policy amongst the major SE companies that I’m aware of. Sometimes they actively encourage it, like during the goldrush days of the Windows Phone and Windows 8 App Stores when they had on-campus hackathons for personal projects and everyone there was using their company-issue laptops, but I guess they were just desperate for content, heh. I remember we had received blanket assurances in writing that MS wouldn’t try to co-opt anything we’d post, just so that we don’t do anything that competes with Office…) Thing is while many cases are easy to tell if they’re obviously in violation of policy, it’s still possible to sleepwalk into it: Doing personal email in OWA/Gmail on a company laptop in lunch? OK Doing personal email in desktop Outlook on a company laptop? OK (as was my understanding of policy at the time: there was a carve-out for having personal email on company hardware) Doing personal email which involves a quick code-review of a rando’s PR to your personal github repo? hmmmm… What about making slight modifications to that code? What if you clone the repo because you need to get a bigger-picture? What if you inadvertently start a build of your cloned repo? Where is the line?
- llimos 5y ago
  Probably a good thing, because otherwise anything on GitHub would count as using company equipment if you're at Microsoft
  - OJFord 5y ago
    I doubt Apple would make that claim of your personal Macbook. Likewise if you're not using the /Microsoft account on GitHub, it's not 'company equipment' in that sense, it's just happens that in a personal capacity you are a client of (a subsidiary of) the company you work for.

mjg59 5y ago

If you're in the US, Google claims that they own it (even in California, where local law means they can only do so if it "Relate[s] at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer" - they asserted ownership of a Linux driver I wrote on my own time for hardware produced by a company that went out of business before Google even existed). Google's actually better than many though - there's a process to release your code under an open source license (although with Google's copyright), you can contribute patches to third party open source projects without additional permission (again, under Google's copyright), and you can request that Google assign copyright for a personal project back to you. My understanding is that Apple basically forbid all of this outright. I'm not sure what the situation is at Amazon or Netflix.

why_only_15 5y ago
two years ago at an apple all hands someone asked craig federighi about this and he more or less said "i know you all hate this {we get a lot of questions about this issue}... but for legal reasons we're not going to change it."
tylerhou 5y ago
There is also an IARC process that grants you the copyright if you get approval. https://opensource.google/docs/iarc/ https://opensource.google/docs/iarc/
OJFord 5y ago
What does it mean to contribute to third party OSS (that has whatever X licence) under Google's copyright? That the project owners couldn't change licence (and keep that code) without Google's consent? Is this why some (/all of a certain size or commerce) worry about CLAs?
- mjg59 5y ago
  Google remains the copyright holder of the submitted patch. There's nothing special in this from the project's perspective - in the absence of copyright assignment as a required part of patch submission, the default is that the submitter retains copyright. In this case, it's just Google claiming ownership of their employee's patch rather than the employee holding the copyright.

bagels 5y ago

In California, if you're doing it with your own resources, and handwavey it's not related to something that Google is having you work on, it's yours. That doesn't mean that they won't try to sue you though.

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

Microsoft has the most permissive moonlighting policy amongst the major SE companies that I’m aware of. Sometimes they actively encourage it, like during the goldrush days of the Windows Phone and Windows 8 App Stores when they had on-campus hackathons for personal projects and everyone there was using their company-issue laptops, but I guess they were just desperate for content, heh. I remember we had received blanket assurances in writing that MS wouldn’t try to co-opt anything we’d post, just so that we don’t do anything that competes with Office…) Thing is while many cases are easy to tell if they’re obviously in violation of policy, it’s still possible to sleepwalk into it: Doing personal email in OWA/Gmail on a company laptop in lunch? OK Doing personal email in desktop Outlook on a company laptop? OK (as was my understanding of policy at the time: there was a carve-out for having personal email on company hardware) Doing personal email which involves a quick code-review of a rando’s PR to your personal github repo? hmmmm… What about making slight modifications to that code? What if you clone the repo because you need to get a bigger-picture? What if you inadvertently start a build of your cloned repo? Where is the line?

llimos 5y ago
Probably a good thing, because otherwise anything on GitHub would count as using company equipment if you're at Microsoft
- OJFord 5y ago
  I doubt Apple would make that claim of your personal Macbook. Likewise if you're not using the /Microsoft account on GitHub, it's not 'company equipment' in that sense, it's just happens that in a personal capacity you are a client of (a subsidiary of) the company you work for.