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Comment by dkarapetyan | Hacker News Reader

At liberty to elaborate always sounded like a weird phrase to me. Of course he is. As a free citizen in a free society he can speak his mind freely.

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People can choose to give up that liberty by signing contracts. :-(

Well no that doesn't technically mean he gave up his "liberty", it just means he promised not to do it at risk of being sued for breach of contract. That's all. You can't be thrown in jail for breaking an NDA.

But you can end up in bankruptcy court. And of course if you're found guilty of violating your NDA that shows up in background checks which pretty much makes you unemployable in the US (in the tech industry at least).

Basically it seems kind of silly to tightly define it as "going to jail", when the practical aspects of willfully violating an NDA can ruin your life (which may or may not be worse than going to jail depending on circumstances)

> Basically it seems kind of silly to tightly define it as "going to jail", when the practical aspects of willfully violating an NDA can ruin your life (which may or may not be worse than going to jail depending on circumstances)

It was specifically referred to as your "liberty" which is incorrect. I never argued that violating an NDA could or could not result in something worse than jail time.

What is liberty if not the absence of restrictions on your choices. Clearly, the repercussions described might heavily impact your liberty in that sense.

(For that matter, even prisoners have some liberties...)

It's near pointless arguing actual logical positions based on real definitions here. People will bring in their own assumptions and project those onto any words you use. When a logical rebuttal can't be made, some will just downmod you to bury your arguments (as you can see actually happened).

Pressuring everyone to add "practically speaking" to every assertion or statement is pedantry gone too far.

If you have to add "practically speaking" to a statement then I would argue your statement is poor in the first place. There is a difference in signing away a "liberty" and signing a contract. A really, really huge difference. Let's just speak clearly.

I can't agree. Context is almost always a sufficient indicator. If you really can't distinguish the difference between what's literally said/written and the intent I do feel bad for you but the reality is that most people can do it just fine.

Not really. Do you have an example of the enforceable language you are referring to?

Signing an NDA takes away your liberty to disclose certain things. I'm not sure what you're trying to dispute.

That would depend on the nature of the language of the NDA. If you have no example language, you're right, there is nothing to dispute.

That's why 'malandrew asked, "Are you at liberty to elaborate?" - in other words, "does the langauge of NDA or whatever other contract you have signed, or the risk your boss getting medieval on your ass, preclude you from elaborating?".

It's a question, but unfortunately, no direct answer that can be given will really tell us about the actual language. All that can be given is someone else's interpretation of the language, which may or may not be accurate.

he could be bound by some NDA(non-disclosure-agreements) when he left.

They are free to speak their mind. However, they are not free from the potential consequences of doing so.

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