5 ms·

That's the default, not just in Google but it pretty much any US company (and probably elsewhere). If you think that's draconian, here's a very good explanatio

That's the default, not just in Google but it pretty much any US company (and probably elsewhere). If you think that's draconian, here's a very good explanation: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... A caveat is that, in California, you own your project provided that (1) you didn't use any company resource, (2) you didn't do it on work hours, and (3) your project is not related to anything that the company does. Of course, in case of Google, it does pretty much everything, which means Google can easily claim anything you do as its own. (IANAL, don't quote me on this.)

arthurcolle 5y ago
obviously you should read the contract before signing with $MEGACORP_THAT_PAYS_YOUR_BILLS, and I agree with (1) and (2) and (3) kinda sorta not really since it basically just implies you are a work machine, but it just seems so rife with the potential for abuse. Thankfully I haven't heard of many other cases of this getting people in too much trouble other than Serge Aleynikov and his case with GS (and honestly, it was stupid of him to upload even open source code from work computer to a remote server). I worked at GS and it was the most locked down development environment ever, so it wouldn't even be feasible/productive for you to "accidentally" work on side projects on these machines. Most security/audit trainings were around "Really - if you do this, you will instantly be teleported into the center of the nearest neutron star"
- yongjik 5y ago
  > Serge Aleynikov IIRC, he saw some open source code used in Goldman Sachs, believed that they should be open (whether right or wrong, I don't know), and uploaded it public. Right? I remember HN discussion from years ago. I don't think his story is related to developers' side projects. If you work for Company X and knowingly upload some of its internal repository to a public place, of course you're going to be fired. Would you expect anything else?
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    from my understanding it was more nuanced than that - the code was already open source but he then made some changes to the source and wanted to keep those changes. Obviously this is pretty bad too, but eventually all charges were dropped and this might have just been because how aggressive the plaintiffs and the FBI goons were in pursuing this guy, especially after considering the accusations of "stealing code" that is so dangerous it could manipulate the fabric of financial markets. In any case, I just pulled up my GS NDA and I probably shouldn't comment any further. Funny side note though: GS realtime risk/lazily loaded object graph database is called SecDB, and @saleyn has a repo on GitHub called secdb which has to do with having an efficient data store for financial data... I guess he was feeling invulnerable after getting off of the previous charges haha
montecarl 5y ago
I live in the US, but not in California. I've worked at three different companies. Each time when signing the employment contract I have pushed back on any terms that would make code that I write outside of work owned by the company. I haven't had any push back on this. My experience may be limited and may not generalize, but I find that in most employment contracts there are just a handful of points that the other party will not concede on. This may be less true at $MEGACORP.
- browningstreet 5y ago
  When I took my current position at a financial firm, it had the clause, but it also came with a form where I could declare, in specific or broad terms, things I did outside of employment. The company still included language affirming the CA guidance on this, and I spoke to HR and gave them hypotheticals, which they responded to in email. I have lots of technical interests that aren't even remotely related to fintech, so I feel comfortable with these boundaries. Plus, at work I'm given a Windows machine, and all my personal projects -- and other commercial endeavors -- won't run on Windows. For that reason alone, I haven't requested alternative hardware/OS even though I could.
- mjg59 5y ago
  Having tried this at $MEGACORP on this specific issue, can confirm it's less true.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 5y ago
    Neither of the two $MEGACORPs (or at least $LARGECORPs) I've worked at have had any issue with various things I've done on the side and I've never kept them secret. So it varies--and neither were in California.
    - pydry 5y ago
      The clause isnt overly broad coz they have a problem with you doing side projects. It's overly broad so that if you have a dispute about something you did outside of work they don't have to prove shit in court to get you to stop.
bamboozled 5y ago
When I read stupid contracts like this, it becomes so obvious that the Universe wasn’t created by lawyers. It’s just so in conflict with the creative process.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  "We have the best employees in the world... because of jail" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw
skrebbel 5y ago
Key quote: Anything you do on your own time, with your own equipment, that is not related to your employer’s line of work is yours, even if the contract you signed says otherwise (from California state law, but it could reasonably be directly in a contract from a reasonable employer) Joel makes the case that if you work for Google, this is meaningless because what isn't related to Google? They do everything. This makes sense to me, and in Google's defense, they pay the part. But then Joel goes on to make the case that "related" is such a vague term that as an employee you can't safely depend on it, even if you work for a company with a narrower scope (ie nearly any other company). I don't know, this seems pretty far fetched to me. Say, you work at SoundCloud and your side project is an iOS game. Wrote it on your own device, in your own time, and so on and so forth. That is so obviously not related that I have a very hard time seeing how, with a clause such as this, any potential judge or jury could decide otherwise. Let alone the reputation damage SoundCloud could get trying to lawyer up on this shit. It just makes no sense. Therefore, I still feel it's a draconian piece of contract and that, unless you apply at a company that truly does everything or pays top dollar, it shouldn't be a reasonable expectation to sign stuff like that.
- redler 5y ago
  Soundcloud could claim that their roadmap includes music-based games for mobile devices.
- rvba 5y ago
  If your game has music (like most do) wont you have a problem? Especially in the rare case that the game becomes popular.
  - skrebbel 5y ago
    That's like saying a game competes with GitHub because it contains source code.
_Algernon_ 5y ago
How does this work for contributions to FOSS? What happens if $MEGACORP decides that any off-work contributions to FOSS software are rightfully theirs?
- yongjik 5y ago
  It would work in the same way as any off-work side projects. If it's (legally) your code, then you can do whatever you want with it, whether you sell it or contribute to FOSS. Otherwise, it was never your code to begin with, so you couldn't "contribute to FOSS" any more than you could donate your work notebook to a charity. In reality, I think Google has an "open source committee" where you would show your proposed contribution, get approved, and then you can contribute to outside open source projects. I heard the process was fairly reasonable.

arthurcolle 5y ago

obviously you should read the contract before signing with $MEGACORP_THAT_PAYS_YOUR_BILLS, and I agree with (1) and (2) and (3) kinda sorta not really since it basically just implies you are a work machine, but it just seems so rife with the potential for abuse. Thankfully I haven't heard of many other cases of this getting people in too much trouble other than Serge Aleynikov and his case with GS (and honestly, it was stupid of him to upload even open source code from work computer to a remote server). I worked at GS and it was the most locked down development environment ever, so it wouldn't even be feasible/productive for you to "accidentally" work on side projects on these machines. Most security/audit trainings were around "Really - if you do this, you will instantly be teleported into the center of the nearest neutron star"

yongjik 5y ago
> Serge Aleynikov IIRC, he saw some open source code used in Goldman Sachs, believed that they should be open (whether right or wrong, I don't know), and uploaded it public. Right? I remember HN discussion from years ago. I don't think his story is related to developers' side projects. If you work for Company X and knowingly upload some of its internal repository to a public place, of course you're going to be fired. Would you expect anything else?
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  from my understanding it was more nuanced than that - the code was already open source but he then made some changes to the source and wanted to keep those changes. Obviously this is pretty bad too, but eventually all charges were dropped and this might have just been because how aggressive the plaintiffs and the FBI goons were in pursuing this guy, especially after considering the accusations of "stealing code" that is so dangerous it could manipulate the fabric of financial markets. In any case, I just pulled up my GS NDA and I probably shouldn't comment any further. Funny side note though: GS realtime risk/lazily loaded object graph database is called SecDB, and @saleyn has a repo on GitHub called secdb which has to do with having an efficient data store for financial data... I guess he was feeling invulnerable after getting off of the previous charges haha

montecarl 5y ago

I live in the US, but not in California. I've worked at three different companies. Each time when signing the employment contract I have pushed back on any terms that would make code that I write outside of work owned by the company. I haven't had any push back on this. My experience may be limited and may not generalize, but I find that in most employment contracts there are just a handful of points that the other party will not concede on. This may be less true at $MEGACORP.

browningstreet 5y ago
When I took my current position at a financial firm, it had the clause, but it also came with a form where I could declare, in specific or broad terms, things I did outside of employment. The company still included language affirming the CA guidance on this, and I spoke to HR and gave them hypotheticals, which they responded to in email. I have lots of technical interests that aren't even remotely related to fintech, so I feel comfortable with these boundaries. Plus, at work I'm given a Windows machine, and all my personal projects -- and other commercial endeavors -- won't run on Windows. For that reason alone, I haven't requested alternative hardware/OS even though I could.
mjg59 5y ago
Having tried this at $MEGACORP on this specific issue, can confirm it's less true.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 5y ago
  Neither of the two $MEGACORPs (or at least $LARGECORPs) I've worked at have had any issue with various things I've done on the side and I've never kept them secret. So it varies--and neither were in California.
  - pydry 5y ago
    The clause isnt overly broad coz they have a problem with you doing side projects. It's overly broad so that if you have a dispute about something you did outside of work they don't have to prove shit in court to get you to stop.

bamboozled 5y ago

When I read stupid contracts like this, it becomes so obvious that the Universe wasn’t created by lawyers. It’s just so in conflict with the creative process.

arthurcolle 5y ago
"We have the best employees in the world... because of jail" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiyfwZVAzGw

skrebbel 5y ago

Key quote: Anything you do on your own time, with your own equipment, that is not related to your employer’s line of work is yours, even if the contract you signed says otherwise (from California state law, but it could reasonably be directly in a contract from a reasonable employer) Joel makes the case that if you work for Google, this is meaningless because what isn't related to Google? They do everything. This makes sense to me, and in Google's defense, they pay the part. But then Joel goes on to make the case that "related" is such a vague term that as an employee you can't safely depend on it, even if you work for a company with a narrower scope (ie nearly any other company). I don't know, this seems pretty far fetched to me. Say, you work at SoundCloud and your side project is an iOS game. Wrote it on your own device, in your own time, and so on and so forth. That is so obviously not related that I have a very hard time seeing how, with a clause such as this, any potential judge or jury could decide otherwise. Let alone the reputation damage SoundCloud could get trying to lawyer up on this shit. It just makes no sense. Therefore, I still feel it's a draconian piece of contract and that, unless you apply at a company that truly does everything or pays top dollar, it shouldn't be a reasonable expectation to sign stuff like that.

redler 5y ago
Soundcloud could claim that their roadmap includes music-based games for mobile devices.
rvba 5y ago
If your game has music (like most do) wont you have a problem? Especially in the rare case that the game becomes popular.
- skrebbel 5y ago
  That's like saying a game competes with GitHub because it contains source code.

_Algernon_ 5y ago

How does this work for contributions to FOSS? What happens if $MEGACORP decides that any off-work contributions to FOSS software are rightfully theirs?

yongjik 5y ago
It would work in the same way as any off-work side projects. If it's (legally) your code, then you can do whatever you want with it, whether you sell it or contribute to FOSS. Otherwise, it was never your code to begin with, so you couldn't "contribute to FOSS" any more than you could donate your work notebook to a charity. In reality, I think Google has an "open source committee" where you would show your proposed contribution, get approved, and then you can contribute to outside open source projects. I heard the process was fairly reasonable.