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Comment by OliverJones | Hacker News Reader

Joel doesn't often miss things, but with respect I think he missed something here.

If you, the employee, are working for an employer you respect, and vice versa, YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION!

If your day job is, say, maintaining high-capacity forum software in dotnet, and you have this hankering to develop, say, a WordPress plugin to show the time of sunrise, you can talk about it.

If you respect your boss and she respects you, the conversation will be fruitful. She may say, "please don't do that," and you'll understand why not. She may say "go ahead."

If you DON'T respect your boss, there's lots of advice here about how to proceed. But why not start out assuming mutual respect?

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I'll be damned if I'm going to let my boss tell me if I can write a WordPress plugin on my own time.

He's not suggesting that. He's saying that you can always cover yourself legally starting with a conversation.

Hey boss, I'm going to write this wordpress plugin as a side project. I'll be doing on my own time and with my own equipment. I'd like the company to disclaim any right to the code.

9 times out of 10 they will do so. If they don't then you know it's time to polish the resume. As tptacek says elsewhere here. It's too good a job market to risk the legal hassle of working someplace like that.

Oh, thanks for clarifying. I misunderstood.

My experience is that employers, and people generally, are completely unpredictable. An employer might seem supportive, but later on decide that your side project should be company property.

And, people hear what they want to hear. The employee hears, "good luck with that project, great idea!" and thinks that means the employer doesn't want a stake in it. The employer might simply be intending to encourage the employee, thinking the project is obviously company owned.

"Having the conversation" only muddies the waters.

Can I get that conversation in writing usually turns into maybe, then gets escalated, then gets a no, in my experience. Luckily I am 100% certain my boss (who owns the company) would sign something if I was looking to get investment.

1 year later: "When you told me about your side-project, you didn't tell me it was going to be successful. Thus, I must change my mind and sue you."

Yeah, this is much more likely to happen if there's actually some meat to take out of your side project, so most devs won't have to worry about it. Developers should understand ahead of time that asking for your boss's word isn't going to mean anything if the side project takes off (for multiple reasons).

However, in that case, a legal fight may be somewhat tenable (though it always sucks for everyone (except lawyers)). If you got them to sign a document releasing the project, you'll be able to win that much more easily.

If you can get the signature without too much hassle, it's worth it. If you can't, it's not worth ever mentioning it, IMO.

You can't really trust companies to 'do the right thing'. Your boss may be a great guy but he reports to someone who may also report to someone, etc. Maybe everyone is even aligned but that may change later with new management.

But your great, respectful boss isn't the company. It's the company, not the boss, that will be turning around and saying "nice product you made there, lucky for us we own it."

I wonder what they would say if you wanted to record that conversation or have it in writing.

> If you, the employee, are working for an employer you respect, and vice versa, YOU CAN HAVE A CONVERSATION!

This. I know Amazon is good at this.

It's great to have/give respect from/to your employers. But this is the way you should think about that; since everyone is respectful, then it is the perfect time to iron-out a nice agreement which lays it all out for both parties, and protects both parties.

That's not at all congruent to the reality of the power dynamic in a modern office.

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