Hacker News Reader

Comment by embedding-shape | Hacker News Reader

It's a damn shame, the hardware is pretty amazing and I wish they just had like one person who cared about Linux working at Apple and then make a small promise to not rugpull Linux users.

View on HN

I think one thing that shows Apple's position towards open source in general is that they don't allow their employees to work on open source projects in their own time and using their own equipment. Before anyone brings up that California labor code provision, it has a carve-out for "activities that relate to the employer's business". Since Apple is big enough and has their fingers in enough pies that they can credibly say that virtually any open source projects developed by Apple employees are related to their business, I would be wary about fighting them in court over this.

I don't think this is it. I can only find one tweet from an Apple employee who said that they can't work on OSS and was looking for new maintainers. I am not sold that this is the whole truth.

I think the bigger issue is contributing to OSS for putting Linux on a Macbook for example could be considered leaking company secrets since you would have access to internals. I find it hard to believe that Apple would go after someone for making a open source calculator app.

I worked for a non-FAANG company in California and the onboarding/exit process about side projects was one of the most annoying thing I've had to deal with. As far as why would silicon valley peeps put up with it...money. Big corps are worried that you will implement something you learned while on the job into one of your side hustles. Not defending it, just stating a bit of reasoning.

They can and do.

This is such a ridiculous rule, it should make silicon valley collectively reach for their torches and pitchforks. Why would you ever accept something so egregiously overreaching like an employer dictating what you can do and cannot do, in your free time, with your own equipment??

On the flip side, doesn't this mean that Apple is providing indirect funding (via employment) to any OSS project their employees contribute to during office hours?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com