4 ms·

Most companies have this policy it’s actually quite important to protect both the company and the project, it wouldn’t surprise me if big projects even mandate

Most companies have this policy it’s actually quite important to protect both the company and the project, it wouldn’t surprise me if big projects even mandate it on their side too. It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. This looks to be the latter rather than the former so it would make sense it would come from an Apple account.

nicoburns 5y ago
> It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all.
- threeseed 5y ago
  > My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all. I am not sure exactly but I suspect this is employee-specific and may be only for those working on sensitive projects. I worked at Apple years ago and it was never in my contract or mentioned to me. And there are plenty of more recent developers e.g. Holden Karau who were contributing to open source projects in their spare time whilst working at Apple.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    Nope, rather, Apple engineers having side projects is employed-specific and usually requires some sort of special case for them to let you continue working on your thing. This has been a standard part of the contract for a while, and it’s nothing like a decade or two ago where you might have a DTS engineer make a side app or two for fun or give their own, unofficial opinions of the SDK on their personal blog without approval.
    - rcarmo 5y ago
      I can confirm that. It was a reason why close acquaintances refused to join.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  It’s more complicated than that. Apple’s blanket policy towards such contributions is that anything you do in your own time needs SVP approval, because it might potentially compete with Apple’s business interests. And as a general policy it likes to deny such requests. Other companies have various policies: Google, for example, is for the most part “we’ll let you do whatever but we own the code, and if you want to own it we will make it about as difficult as Apple does”. The whole “you compete with us if you do anything” is a big tech thing, by the way, because they work on so many things that they can scare their engineers with competition threats on any grounds in California. The best that smaller companies can do is restrict you from working on the limited thing they work on, such as developer tooling or a social network.
  - com2kid 5y ago
    Meanwhile Microsoft lets their employees do whatever they want after hours, so long as no company provided resources are used. I know of developers who made quite a bit of $$$ being first out the door with applications utilizing SDKs that they wrote. MS is perfectly happy with their own developers showing off shiny new features.
    - cstejerean 5y ago
      Because that’s the law in Washington state.
      - dlsa 5y ago
        And not in california? Its interesting that Apple is seen as hip and cool yet operates a tight leash obviously because it can, legally. Microsoft is... other things... yet is operating a looser leash, albeit also in compliance with law. Interesting but not surprising I guess.
        bombcar 5y ago
        Microsoft is also "older" on the software side of things, and is probably the source of why that law came into being in Washington state.
inglor 5y ago
At Microsoft at least at my site we are encouraged to contribute to open source and it even brings perks/recognition so really not sure about “most companies” here
- rcarmo 5y ago
  It's company wide, so yes, Microsoft has a pretty sane policy regarding that (as well as clear guidelines for dealing with OSS code)
scarface74 5y ago
We (FAANG) have a list of open source projects that we are not allowed to contribute to without prior permission. Anything else is fair game from what I can tell.

nicoburns 5y ago

> It usually comes in two flavors - individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment and official contributions when the company itself contributes to a project. My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all.

threeseed 5y ago
> My understanding is that Apple's policy is highly unusual in that "individual contribution as you doing something on your own time and equipment" are pretty much not allowed at all. I am not sure exactly but I suspect this is employee-specific and may be only for those working on sensitive projects. I worked at Apple years ago and it was never in my contract or mentioned to me. And there are plenty of more recent developers e.g. Holden Karau who were contributing to open source projects in their spare time whilst working at Apple.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Nope, rather, Apple engineers having side projects is employed-specific and usually requires some sort of special case for them to let you continue working on your thing. This has been a standard part of the contract for a while, and it’s nothing like a decade or two ago where you might have a DTS engineer make a side app or two for fun or give their own, unofficial opinions of the SDK on their personal blog without approval.
  - rcarmo 5y ago
    I can confirm that. It was a reason why close acquaintances refused to join.
saagarjha 5y ago
It’s more complicated than that. Apple’s blanket policy towards such contributions is that anything you do in your own time needs SVP approval, because it might potentially compete with Apple’s business interests. And as a general policy it likes to deny such requests. Other companies have various policies: Google, for example, is for the most part “we’ll let you do whatever but we own the code, and if you want to own it we will make it about as difficult as Apple does”. The whole “you compete with us if you do anything” is a big tech thing, by the way, because they work on so many things that they can scare their engineers with competition threats on any grounds in California. The best that smaller companies can do is restrict you from working on the limited thing they work on, such as developer tooling or a social network.
- com2kid 5y ago
  Meanwhile Microsoft lets their employees do whatever they want after hours, so long as no company provided resources are used. I know of developers who made quite a bit of $$$ being first out the door with applications utilizing SDKs that they wrote. MS is perfectly happy with their own developers showing off shiny new features.
  - cstejerean 5y ago
    Because that’s the law in Washington state.
    - dlsa 5y ago
      And not in california? Its interesting that Apple is seen as hip and cool yet operates a tight leash obviously because it can, legally. Microsoft is... other things... yet is operating a looser leash, albeit also in compliance with law. Interesting but not surprising I guess.
      - bombcar 5y ago
        Microsoft is also "older" on the software side of things, and is probably the source of why that law came into being in Washington state.

inglor 5y ago

At Microsoft at least at my site we are encouraged to contribute to open source and it even brings perks/recognition so really not sure about “most companies” here

rcarmo 5y ago
It's company wide, so yes, Microsoft has a pretty sane policy regarding that (as well as clear guidelines for dealing with OSS code)

scarface74 5y ago

We (FAANG) have a list of open source projects that we are not allowed to contribute to without prior permission. Anything else is fair game from what I can tell.