Hacker News Reader

Comment by ystad | Hacker News Reader

Google has a similar clause too. They own all IP including your personal projects. https://www.businessinsider.com/former-googlers-google-ip-op...

View on HN

I understand it's legal but I was always wondering how this could be morally acceptable and why developers don't lobby against this. I understand the view of the employer: if you work on a project A at work, and on a n open-source project B that is direct competition to project A, you might be acting against the interests of the company. So to save everybody's time, they claim the right to everything and it's done.

However, this is hurting you as developer when you work on unrelated projects. Your work for the community is impeded (e.g. in the case of Google you need to go through a lot of bureaucracy) or completely impossible. In theory you can write some code for yourself, but what motivation do you have, knowing that your employer will be its owner anyway? You will have less motivation to explore new areas of interest for the same reason. It's terrible for personal development.

IANAL, but as I understand it, it's not legal in the UK, EU or California (but it doesn't take much for a company to be able to claim the IP - using a company laptop or a company subscription to a journal, for example, would easily push it over the edge)

It's true but they also have a reasonable set of processes for open sourcing things. I have been through various forms of it a few times and never had problems getting permission.

I can understand both points of view, but I imagine from Google's standpoint: they do an incredibly large number of things, "working hours" are often a pretty nebulous concept in the world of software development, and simple accidental leaks could lead to bad litigation situations or critical IP leakage.

> It's true but they also have a reasonable set of processes for open sourcing things.

So its "mother may I?" for the 'privilege' of working for such a shit company?

For a company to claim ownership of everything I do when not working is called indentured servitude or slavery.

I came to the conclusion early on that that is the nature of capitalist work generally, so pick your poison. I don't agree with the whole system, but also don't think this employer is worse than most others on that front. It's just formulated in a legal clause where other employers might just litigate later if they needed to.

I get paid well, and have never had a problem -- or seen others have problems -- open sourcing things where it made sense; including things that I worked on at work during work hours such as abandoned/cancelled projects or things that made sense for the community to have access to.

EDIT: also your tone sucks, this is HN not reddit.

No, realistically, it is called exempt salary works for hire, and there are legal limits to it. No salaried job has "set hours".

The limits you can work with are: working on your own equipment, non-working hours, working on it at home in an area not typically used for $dayjob, the subject of the work, and above all else your locality. These agreements are generally overreaches by the lawyers drafting them, depending on the nature of the job. Remember: no contract can limit rights granted to you under the law, every contract has limits, and you cannot be prevented from working, even if stated otherwise.

Washington, for instance, has state laws against this kind of IP assignment.

IANAL, so don't read into this too much, but I have consulted IP attorneys about this. If you're doing something like this, definitely consult -- the kind of work you do does matter. In this guy's case, it seems he does have a conflict of interest w.r.t. the work he does for IBM.

Many consultancies do, as you have billable hours and even your non-billable hours have to be accounted for. These are your hours on company time.

We weren't talking about contracting or consultancies...

'I own everything you create' is intellectual slavery, plain and simple. It is nowhere near as bad as full slavery like before the U.S. civil war, but it is slavery of the mind none the less. Saying that in some cases your master may be willing to let you take credit for what you created on your own time and share it, this frames it as a gift that you may be given if you are deemed worthy enough and it does not hinder the company's interests. Think about that - you are being something you created as a gift, and there is no guarantee that you'll be given it, and you won't know until you create it and submit the request.

I suspect all the FAANG companies do this, because they are big enough to get away with it and the cachet of having them on your resume is impressive enough convinces some that it's worth it.

Feudalism.

It’s not reasonable by any means - you either assign all rights to google or assign all rights except copyright to google.

Their process is public actually, you can take a look: https://opensource.google/docs/releasing/

I thought California had a law - on your own time with your own tools, it belongs to you. Worked that way 20 years ago anyway.

It does [1]. But I believe this can be overruled by mutual assent, i.e., by contract.

[1] https://www.californialaborandemploymentlaw.net/2017/intelle...

How the fuck did they carve that out.

No one should ever be able to contract away a right.

That's bullshit. One step of signing away a right is a direct slope to slavery.

I do not think that’s actually enforceable though.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com