7 ms·

Today, employment agreements usually say that the company owns anything you build, even "at home for fun", that overlaps with their business. Was this not the

by skobes 3y ago

Today, employment agreements usually say that the company owns anything you build, even "at home for fun", that overlaps with their business. Was this not the case at Microsoft in the 90s?

throwuxiytayq 3y ago
Do they really? Where do you live? I'd never sign a paper like that.
- shortrounddev2 3y ago
  They're standard across almost all tech companies. Typically they're constrained to say that "anything you work on that's related to your job belongs to us"
  - aquatica 3y ago
    Is this the case for Europe too?
    - mrweasel 3y ago
      Some places yes. It's a little different, at least it has been in all my contracts. The company you work for has the rights to buy the software from you, at a reasonable price. If they don't want it, you free to do whatever. They can't just take it. I had colleagues would worked on a project in their space time, their price was reasonable wanting only compensation for the hours spend working on. The company didn't want it, but they also could not sell it, because if was so heavily tied into our systems and work flows that they couldn't reasonably sell it anywhere else. One of those developers then started working on another project, one that was so fare away from what we did that there was no way the company would want it and turned that project into a very successful business. In reality what happens is that people will work on something, quit, and the spend a few months on polishing and then release their project or sell it. Very few companies will want to spend time going after a former employee building some side business far removed from their core business.
      - mytailorisrich 3y ago
        The problem is how to agree what 'reasonable price' is... And, in any case, it may be an abusive clause.
  - stinos 3y ago
    So how does that play out when I work as a contractor for multiple companies which have some overlap?
    - k8svet 3y ago
      You should consult the employment contacts your signed and/or an attorney...
    - NikolaNovak 3y ago
      That extremely depends on details of your contract, understanding with clients, level of honesty, risk appetite, and legal advice. There are any amount of large companies where being employed by multiple entities is either frowned upon to expressly verboten. Of course, there are also any number of companies that do no care as long as you deliver, and many that actively encourage / expect nerds to nerd out in our spare time :)
      - pixl97 3y ago
        This entire "You're a contractor, but you can only work for us" really makes me ask "Then why are they a contractor", cause it really sounds like they are an employee.
        mywittyname 3y ago
        In this situation, they probably work for a consulting firm who is hiring them as FTE. And my experience with this is that the consulting firm itself is party to the agreement on how intellectual property rights are transferred and the employee of the firm signs an agreement that the firm can negotiate such on their behalf. It boils down to, employee transfers IP to their consulting firm, and the firm agrees to transfer ownership of the IP for which hours were billed to produce. IME, the firm I worked for would not bill clients for work done to our shared libraries. I'd record those hours to the firm itself, but I would still get paid the same.
        NikolaNovak 3y ago
        Many reasons, usually combination of short term need, specialized skillset, reduction in liability.
  - ryandrake 3y ago
    Every employer I've had during the last 15 years or so have boilerplate language in their employment agreements asserting ownership of all IP I create while at work and at home, using company equipment or my own equipment, commercial or free, as long as it is remotely related to the company's past, present, or future business. And when your company is huge, they can and will argue that anything might be potential future business. And yes, I've tried to push back on those, and so far no employer has been willing to negotiate.
- NikolaNovak 3y ago
  Yes. Canada and USA. If you read your employment contract with Th a large corporation there'll wording on intellectual property rights while employed. Chances are also good you'll have to review a document or training on yearly basis - not specific to this one thing but on various policies (security, ip rights, corruption, harassment, competition, social presence, etc). Many people don't know it's there, for various reasons. But it typically is - after all, that's just corporations learning from history.
bawolff 3y ago
Maybe MS just wanted to be nice.Maybe author was in a juridsiction where it is unclear how enforcible those clauses are if it was outside work hours and not using company equipment. Maybe they thought the price was low enough that it wasn't worth the potential backlash of appearing to be underhanded. Just because something is in the contract doesn't mean it gets enforced to the letter if neither side wants it to be.
- wongarsu 3y ago
  Giving one of your employees an unexpected bonus sure beats fighting them in court. It's a really small sum we are talking about here, they probably planned to spend more on it if the author was someone willing to negotiate. And it's not like the guy didn't make them enough money with his contributions
bombcar 3y ago
Apparently it wasn’t as settled as it is now, similar stories are found at folklore about Apple and devs developing at home.
quartz 3y ago
He clarifies that he had prior written agreement to work on shareware and this software specifically. You can do this at most established big tech still today (possibly tougher at startups). And hey it worked out great for Microsoft— they got the software they wanted at a great price (1x used corvette * ~1.8 for taxes) with no negotiation, and they already employ the guy who wrote it so I imagine integrating it was even easier than they expected.
kube-system 3y ago
Even if your employment agreement doesn't say that, it might be advisable to sign an agreement with your employer that explicitly excludes any of your side projects that overlap with your employer's business. If it's linked enough to your employer's business, and you're salaried, and it could be demonstrated that it is part of your job duties, it might not be that clear as to who actually owns the code.
andai 3y ago
Seems like a great loss for mankind. Hire the best people in the world, and then disincentivize them from innovating.
pjmlp 3y ago
This is not legal in most European jurisditions, unless it is proven that you took advantage of inside knowledge. The trick is to never do any side gigs that are directly related to the main activities at work.

by skobes 3y ago

Today, employment agreements usually say that the company owns anything you build, even "at home for fun", that overlaps with their business. Was this not the case at Microsoft in the 90s?

throwuxiytayq 3y ago

Do they really? Where do you live? I'd never sign a paper like that.

shortrounddev2 3y ago
They're standard across almost all tech companies. Typically they're constrained to say that "anything you work on that's related to your job belongs to us"
- aquatica 3y ago
  Is this the case for Europe too?
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    Some places yes. It's a little different, at least it has been in all my contracts. The company you work for has the rights to buy the software from you, at a reasonable price. If they don't want it, you free to do whatever. They can't just take it. I had colleagues would worked on a project in their space time, their price was reasonable wanting only compensation for the hours spend working on. The company didn't want it, but they also could not sell it, because if was so heavily tied into our systems and work flows that they couldn't reasonably sell it anywhere else. One of those developers then started working on another project, one that was so fare away from what we did that there was no way the company would want it and turned that project into a very successful business. In reality what happens is that people will work on something, quit, and the spend a few months on polishing and then release their project or sell it. Very few companies will want to spend time going after a former employee building some side business far removed from their core business.
    - mytailorisrich 3y ago
      The problem is how to agree what 'reasonable price' is... And, in any case, it may be an abusive clause.
- stinos 3y ago
  So how does that play out when I work as a contractor for multiple companies which have some overlap?
  - k8svet 3y ago
    You should consult the employment contacts your signed and/or an attorney...
  - NikolaNovak 3y ago
    That extremely depends on details of your contract, understanding with clients, level of honesty, risk appetite, and legal advice. There are any amount of large companies where being employed by multiple entities is either frowned upon to expressly verboten. Of course, there are also any number of companies that do no care as long as you deliver, and many that actively encourage / expect nerds to nerd out in our spare time :)
    - pixl97 3y ago
      This entire "You're a contractor, but you can only work for us" really makes me ask "Then why are they a contractor", cause it really sounds like they are an employee.
      - mywittyname 3y ago
        In this situation, they probably work for a consulting firm who is hiring them as FTE. And my experience with this is that the consulting firm itself is party to the agreement on how intellectual property rights are transferred and the employee of the firm signs an agreement that the firm can negotiate such on their behalf. It boils down to, employee transfers IP to their consulting firm, and the firm agrees to transfer ownership of the IP for which hours were billed to produce. IME, the firm I worked for would not bill clients for work done to our shared libraries. I'd record those hours to the firm itself, but I would still get paid the same.
      - NikolaNovak 3y ago
        Many reasons, usually combination of short term need, specialized skillset, reduction in liability.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Every employer I've had during the last 15 years or so have boilerplate language in their employment agreements asserting ownership of all IP I create while at work and at home, using company equipment or my own equipment, commercial or free, as long as it is remotely related to the company's past, present, or future business. And when your company is huge, they can and will argue that anything might be potential future business. And yes, I've tried to push back on those, and so far no employer has been willing to negotiate.
NikolaNovak 3y ago
Yes. Canada and USA. If you read your employment contract with Th a large corporation there'll wording on intellectual property rights while employed. Chances are also good you'll have to review a document or training on yearly basis - not specific to this one thing but on various policies (security, ip rights, corruption, harassment, competition, social presence, etc). Many people don't know it's there, for various reasons. But it typically is - after all, that's just corporations learning from history.

bawolff 3y ago

Maybe MS just wanted to be nice.Maybe author was in a juridsiction where it is unclear how enforcible those clauses are if it was outside work hours and not using company equipment. Maybe they thought the price was low enough that it wasn't worth the potential backlash of appearing to be underhanded. Just because something is in the contract doesn't mean it gets enforced to the letter if neither side wants it to be.

wongarsu 3y ago
Giving one of your employees an unexpected bonus sure beats fighting them in court. It's a really small sum we are talking about here, they probably planned to spend more on it if the author was someone willing to negotiate. And it's not like the guy didn't make them enough money with his contributions

bombcar 3y ago

Apparently it wasn’t as settled as it is now, similar stories are found at folklore about Apple and devs developing at home.

quartz 3y ago

He clarifies that he had prior written agreement to work on shareware and this software specifically. You can do this at most established big tech still today (possibly tougher at startups). And hey it worked out great for Microsoft— they got the software they wanted at a great price (1x used corvette * ~1.8 for taxes) with no negotiation, and they already employ the guy who wrote it so I imagine integrating it was even easier than they expected.

kube-system 3y ago

Even if your employment agreement doesn't say that, it might be advisable to sign an agreement with your employer that explicitly excludes any of your side projects that overlap with your employer's business. If it's linked enough to your employer's business, and you're salaried, and it could be demonstrated that it is part of your job duties, it might not be that clear as to who actually owns the code.

andai 3y ago

Seems like a great loss for mankind. Hire the best people in the world, and then disincentivize them from innovating.

pjmlp 3y ago

This is not legal in most European jurisditions, unless it is proven that you took advantage of inside knowledge. The trick is to never do any side gigs that are directly related to the main activities at work.