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Comment by auvrw | Hacker News Reader

> Now, there are a couple of nuances to this new policy:

> 1. Rackers are encouraged to contribute on their own time, and if they wish to contribute during work hours they must obtain approval from their manager.

> 2. If a Racker would like to contribute to a project that is directly competitive with Rackspace, we’d like to understand why before they contribute.

2 has got to mean

"If a Racker would like to contribute to a project that is directly competitive with Rackspace [during work hours], we’d like to understand why before they contribute."

otherwise, i don't think such a policy is even legal?

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This type of policy is very frequently known as the Assignment Of Inventions or Invention Assignments. Sadly - they are very enforceable depending on the state you're in. For example, non-competes are still in force across the US, but in some places if they go to court they fall over.

IP clauses like this are slightly more enforceable - all the employer has to do is prove you were employed at the employer when you started a company/made some code/wrote a book. See also: http://theemplawyerologist.com/2013/01/17/works-for-hire-and...

What we are saying is that it is our policy that the work for hire doctrine (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire) does not apply to OSS contributions at Rackspace, and that we encourage all employees to become involved with a community.

If you work at a company bigger than 10-15 employees, check your employment agreement. Rackspace's stance on this is highly unusual (I think even unique) for a company its size.

Does the employee agreement for Rackspace claim code ownership on code written on employee's own time and equipment?

I've removed sections from contracts I've signed that do just that. Always made me laugh. Somewhat unenforcable here in Australia, but I'd rather be sure and strike it out.

Every full-time employment agreements I've signed in my career as a software engineer has had some sort of clause to the effect that my employer owns any work I do, even if it's done with my own hardware on my own time, if it is demonstrably in direct competition with my employer's chief line of business. This seems completely in line with that.

(Whether that sort of clause is enforceable in court is another question. IANAL.)

Most companies at least try to sneak in a provision like but, but a couple of important points:

1. Whether it's valid or not may depend on prevailing state law that is in effect. Just because you sign a document saying "you own my brain 24x7" does not necessarily mean that it's the case.

2. These provisions are often negotiable. When I worked for Lulu.com, their IP Assignment paperwork was so onerous that they could have claimed to own a fantasy novel that I might write in my spare time. I refused to sign until they made an exception. It took a while, but we worked something out that was reasonable.

3. A lot of times companies hand you a big stack of paperwork to sign, but have no process to audit that it all got returned and signed. Other than tax and insurance related stuff, your best bet may be to put it in your desk drawer and forget about it until somebody asks. There's a good chance nobody ever will. I worked at a job 4.5 years once and never did sign any of the NDA / IP Assignment / etc. crap. It was still in my desk drawer the day I left, right where I put it the day they gave it to me. shrug

4. Always talk to an actual lawyer if you have serious concerns about this stuff. :-)

All these points are correct. We are just trying to make it so that the trip to the lawyer is not necessary. The fewer lawyers the better. ;)

If you get pushback on trying to strike out one of these clauses, just tell them that you do volunteer charity work that sometimes involves computers -- and that the organizations you work with want to protect themselves from lawsuits. That way, if they balk, they come across as being anti-charity. And don't forget, organizations suchs as the FSF are registered non-profit charities.

> Always talk to an actual lawyer if you have serious concerns about this stuff. :-)

yeah, but lawyering-up isn't cheap either, so perhaps i can glean some general insight from hn :) :/ ?

but let's say you're working somewhere that uses some technology... like, i dunno, you're working at google or somewhere with a really broad scope and you want to make some sort of open-source contributions to or write something about one of the many things they've got a finger on like, well, pretty much anything from clojure to thermostats... how's it going to play out if you try to fork that apache-licensed project or sell a compendium of writings somewhere down the line?

i have worked at a multinational company before, but the scope of what they did was fairly limited in comparison to some of the larger companies, so i'd never heard of such -- apparently common -- agreements before. i'm guessing that most of companies wouldn't mind free-software-type contributions and these agreements amount to more of an nda than a, "we own all your programs while we're paying your salary," or is that naive?

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