4 ms·

OSS is a mess in EU. In Germany, signing a FTE contract also entails implicitly that, if I produce something over the weekends, my employer has legal power to c

by n_ary 3y ago

OSS is a mess in EU. In Germany, signing a FTE contract also entails implicitly that, if I produce something over the weekends, my employer has legal power to claim it as their IP. If I probably contribute something to some open-source project, my employer can also claim royalty of that too. While there are not much precedents of these happening, the legal rights remain. Also, non-compete is implicit too. Also, general brilliant people loved to hold onto their motes and not contribute back, a strange tendency I noticed on corps from senior engineer peers. That being said, not everything is dark and there are plenty of open source work going in EU.

agos 3y ago
if it hasn't been proved in a court, can we really say that there is a legal right?
Timon3 3y ago
> Also, non-compete is implicit too. I'm not sure what you mean. Non-competes must be explicitly signed.
trh0awayman 3y ago
> In Germany, signing a FTE contract also entails implicitly that, if I produce something over the weekends, my employer has legal power to claim it as their IP. What gave you that idea? In fact, I was under the impression that Germany has pretty strong protections in that arena.
mcv 3y ago
That must be Germany-specific because I don't think that's universal. As far as I know, anything I write in my free time is mine, unless maybe my employer can prove it's directly related to my work for them. And most companies I worked for were very supportive of open source, one of them actively involved in several Apache projects and employing committers for several projects, on top of releasing their own software as open source.
- wizhi 3y ago
  Most companies I've worked for (Denmark) has had a similar clause in their contracts. No clue if it holds up in court though.
awesomeMilou 3y ago
> if I produce something over the weekends, my employer has legal power to claim it as their IP I live in Germany and I'm certain you are mistaken. The situation becomes different if you so much as looked at your OSS projects during work hours, but the projects you work on in your free time are yours. This is similar to how your FT employer can't keep you from taking up another part time job on the weekends. Just because your contract has such a clause doesn't mean it's enforcable in court.

by n_ary 3y ago

agos 3y ago

if it hasn't been proved in a court, can we really say that there is a legal right?

Timon3 3y ago

> Also, non-compete is implicit too. I'm not sure what you mean. Non-competes must be explicitly signed.

trh0awayman 3y ago

> In Germany, signing a FTE contract also entails implicitly that, if I produce something over the weekends, my employer has legal power to claim it as their IP. What gave you that idea? In fact, I was under the impression that Germany has pretty strong protections in that arena.

mcv 3y ago

That must be Germany-specific because I don't think that's universal. As far as I know, anything I write in my free time is mine, unless maybe my employer can prove it's directly related to my work for them. And most companies I worked for were very supportive of open source, one of them actively involved in several Apache projects and employing committers for several projects, on top of releasing their own software as open source.

wizhi 3y ago
Most companies I've worked for (Denmark) has had a similar clause in their contracts. No clue if it holds up in court though.

awesomeMilou 3y ago

> if I produce something over the weekends, my employer has legal power to claim it as their IP I live in Germany and I'm certain you are mistaken. The situation becomes different if you so much as looked at your OSS projects during work hours, but the projects you work on in your free time are yours. This is similar to how your FT employer can't keep you from taking up another part time job on the weekends. Just because your contract has such a clause doesn't mean it's enforcable in court.