Supreme Court: Dutch State to reduce greenhouse emissions by 25% until Dec 2020 - <AUTHOR> https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisatie/Hoge-Raad-der-Nederlanden/Nieuws/Paginas/Dutch-State-to-reduce-greenhouse-gas-emissions-by-25-by-the-end-of-2020.aspx <comment><AUTHOR> Our highest court just ordered the government, based on the European Convention on Human Rights (articles 2 and 8), to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% as compared to 1990. There are now 13 months left to reach that goal.

The objection from the government that it's too short notice was rejected by the court.

The court cites the realistic chance for loss of life, disruption of the food production, excessive flooding, etc. as reason why the government must take urgent action.

Similar lawsuits are currently going on in other countries. Since the ruling is based on a European convention and the percentage goal and reference year were defined in a climate agreement by the united nations, it seems likely that other countries will have to follow suit.

Since this ruling is barely a few hours old, information (especially in English) is still developing. This was the best article from a reliable source that I could find. Urgenda (the plaintiffs) also has a website, though it is not yet updated in response to today's ruling: [https://urgenda.nl/en/climate- case](https://urgenda.nl/en/climate-case)

</comment><comment><USER2> Quotes from the article. So they push for another 2% reduction within one year?

"to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels."

"A report [...] estimated that Dutch greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 would be about 23% lower than 1990 levels."

Edit: Sorry, just realized I was quoting the AP article [https://apnews.com/5534fe18ac5352ba43c74c9a64d6a20a](https://apnews.com/5534fe18ac5352ba43c74c9a64d6a20a)</comment>


IKEA Hackers – How to make a bookcase secret door - <AUTHOR> https://www.ikeahackers.net/2019/01/secret-door-billy-bookcase.html <comment><USER2> This is awesome, although I'm not a fan of the mirrors. Why didn't you take out the other door?</comment>


This Tower Pulls Drinking Water Out of Thin Air - <AUTHOR> http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/this-tower-pulls-drinking-water-out-of-thin-air-180950399/?no-ist <comment><USER2> Something doesn't seen internally consistent in this article. We read about a device, that can be locally assembled, that, can draw up to 25 gallons of water a day (I would have been impressed with 1 gallon a day) - and, "In all, it costs about $500 to set up a tower...His team hopes to install two Warka Towers in Ethiopia by next year and is currently searching for investors who may be interested in scaling the water harvesting technology across the region. "

Why would "two Warka towers" be a target for a year, when, on the surface, reading this - it would make sense to go install a thousand of them and see how they played out over a year. If this device really could pull, even 10 gallons of water a day for $500 cost, it would have zero problem attracting funding on that kind of tiny pilot scale.

<comment><USER3> I think the main reason is because it's just two industrial designers with no connections to any of the NGOs necessary to get the $500k worth of build-money and probably another $500k to $1.5mm worth of "let's make this happen" money.

Look at the front page of the website it's posted on: [http://www.architectureandvision.com/](http://www.architectureandvision.com/) Half of the stuff there is made-up concepts, not real actual things.

If we were seeing this on the water.org website then yes I would absolutely agree with you that the two units as a "goal" is ridiculous. But since it seems like they have no serious funding yet and plane tickets to Africa aren't exactly cheap I think two units is reasonable.

<comment><USER4> This looks like a perfect idea for a kickstarter campaign, though...

<comment><USER5> From [https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics](https://www.kickstarter.com/help/faq/kickstarter%20basics):

      > Kickstarter does not allow charity, cause,
      > or "fund my life" projects. Check out our
      > project guidelines for details.

<comment><USER6> "Hi. We're warka tower.

Pay $1000 and we'll make two warka towers, one for you and one for africa. You must pick up yours*

*If you fail to pick it up in X days we'll take it to Africa"

<comment><USER7> This would be a great Burning Man exhibit.

<comment><USER2> Part of the playa environment would work in their favor (Cold at night, Warm in the day) - but there are two elements in the playa that would likely make these ineffective.

1\. Playa Dust - that stuff gets in _everything_ \- and this water tower would be choked with the stuff almost immediately. Cleaning it would be challenge (to put it lightly

2\. More problematically, the condensation tower/Air well works on the principle of collecting dew that forms on a low temperature substrate. The humidity near gerlach is close to 38 percent, and I don't recall ever seeing much in the way of condensation ever....

<comment><USER8> I wonder how many problems like his would also exist in a deployment in Ethiopia. Many problems seem much more complicated when you've encountered them firsthand.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> Here's a link that describes the technology behind it: [http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/how-to-get-fresh-water-out- of...](http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/how-to-get-fresh-water-out-of-thin- air-0830)

...and one showing the structure in detail: [http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...](http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/84-projects/art/492-073-warkawater-2012?showall=&start=1)

TLDR: Great for pulling moisture out of the air if the air already has a really high moisture content. Pretty much useless in other circumstances.

<comment><USER10> According to the article, it's temperature differential that's important. So it works in the desert, which has 50 degree swings between day and night. Many places with high moisture content have much smaller swings in temperature, so it might not work as well in the jungle.

<comment><USER11> Alternately, the article is incorrect/oversimplifying. It's pretty easy to see that it is at least oversimplifying with a simple thought experiment: Suppose we were to place a Warka Tower in an airtight with a humidity of 0% (no water in the air) and with an air temperature of 120°F. Then suppose we were to drop the chamber temperature to 40°F. By all accounts, this is a huge change in temperature for a human-habitable region to undergo (an 80°F change), so the tower should produce a LOT of water. However, because the air in the chamber has so little water actually in it, very little water will actually be produced. Ultimately, what makes the tower work well is a large temperature change _and_ a high humidity.

<comment><USER12> Step 1, find 0% humidity, where are you going todo that where people are living? Strawman.

<comment><USER11> I believe that my argument remains a solid, semi-logical rebuttal (it does depend on some physical intuition) to the claim that we can fully trust the original article's claim that the effectiveness of the device depends only on the temperature differential at the location where it is deployed. At the very least, the claim needs to be demonstrated in the field or explained by some documented physical phenomenon before I'll completely trust it.

<comment><USER12> Say that instead. Arguing that it only works in high humidity environments while using 0% humidity as your basis isn't sound.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> So does this one:

[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:LukeMoistureVaporator- MO...](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/File:LukeMoistureVaporator-MOSW.png)

The ones in the article look like they're cheaper, possible to construct with local materials, and importantly: more user friendly - you don't even need a droid that understands the binary language of moisture vaporators.

</comment><comment><USER14> I am curious how a project like this, which has been around since July of 2012 [1], gets such an intense amount of media coverage all in a the last two weeks: Wired, Daily Mail, Smithonian, Engaget, Huffington Post, and now HN. [2]

[1] [http://s831.us/1qr8eNO](http://s831.us/1qr8eNO) [2] [https://www.google.com/search?q=WarkaWater](https://www.google.com/search?q=WarkaWater)

<comment><USER12> Because of a PR push, nothing wrong with that.

</comment></comment><comment><USER15> The concept of air wells has been around for awhile, but it's good that they're able to keep the costs low and build it from local materials with local labor.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_(condenser)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_well_\(condenser\))

</comment><comment><USER16> Isn't the generated/collected water like _condensed water_ free of any kind of salts etc. that would naturally occur in ground/drinking water, so shouldn't it be unsafe to drink large amounts of it (much like it is unsafe to drink large amounts of salt/sea water due to the saline imbalance)?

I wonder how/if they address this?

<comment><USER17>
      It is unsafe to drink sea water due to high salt content.
      Therefore, drinking water with no salt content is also unsafe.

I do not understand that reasoning.

<comment><USER18> Ultra pure water will leach salts from the body. This is dangerous.

At least, that's what people suggest, I don't know if it's true.

<comment><USER19> It's called hyponatraemia; check it out at wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatraemia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyponatraemia)

<comment><USER19> A downvote for a pure statement of fact?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I don't agree with not having local repairmen as being a real showstopper. Any new system requires training: fire building, hut building, brick making. They need to factor training into the roll out of the technology, and don't focus on training men, take the women and grandmothers, train them first. RE: The barefoot movement in India: [http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy](http://www.ted.com/talks/bunker_roy) Tell a mother she doesn't have to walk 6 hours for dirty water, she will learn to fix whatever is necessary given the right training and availability of tools/material.

<comment><USER21> Agreed, it's probably the opposite. Folks that are struggling out of necessary tend to have respectable DIY artisans that are very resourceful and creative in the truest sense of hacker. (When you don't have much, your ability to think of creative solutions based on what you have becomes very acute.)

</comment></comment><comment><USER22> Has anyone tested the long term viability? Contamination, dust, mildew, flies etc.? Seems like a good idea but I venture the water would need further processing. Still, looks like a better starting point than where many communities are now.

<comment><USER2> As long as the water is reasonably clear, just leaving it in a plastic bottle in the sun for a day or so will get the water safe enough to drink.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_water_disinfection)

[http://www.irinnews.org/report/79172/benin-sunshine- plastic-...](http://www.irinnews.org/report/79172/benin-sunshine-plastic- bottle-clean-water)

And this water is not ground water - so all of the many, many normal types of ground pollution are being avoided.

<comment><USER23> You're supposed _not_ to drink water from a plastic bottle which has been exposed for some time to the sun.

<comment><USER24> The amount of time matters. The 5 hours required for solar disinfecting is far less than the time a plastic bottle will degrade in the sun and contaminate the contained liquids.

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET - commonly used for soda bottles) can withstand direct sunlight for 5 years. There's leeching occurring throughout the degradation, and I can't find any trustworthy research on leeched PET harm when ingested repeatedly over a lifetime, but a few hours in the sun is pretty far from the danger zone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> Not just Africa, there are many places in India mainly the tribal villages where the women walk for more than 3 kms to carry 10 litres of fresh water.

<comment><USER26> Heck, places in the U.S. need water, why start in Ethiopia where the trial costs will be higher?

<comment><USER21> If a prototype has been validated, go big fast with multiple concurrent efforts.

The concerning detail is that the website lists this project as 2012. [0] Perhaps they were unable to get it working?

0 [http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...](http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/84-projects/art/492-073-warkawater-2012?showall=&start=4)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER27> Seems like something that just needs to be 100% open source, with designs freely available to the public. If it works so well, it really ought to be utterly free to construct, since it will have such a significant impact on peoples lives to be able to have such access to fresh water.

So whats the problem here? Isn't this science free, already?

</comment><comment><USER28> notice the design/idea is, AFAICT, from 2012

[http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/...](http://www.architectureandvision.com/projects/chronological/84-projects/art/492-073-warkawater-2012?showall=&start=5)

</comment><comment><USER29> This is a nice read on the subject: [http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engineering/2011-12-team5/dow...](http://www.calvin.edu/academic/engineering/2011-12-team5/downloads/Team_5_Design_Report.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER30> Anyone know if anything became of this? The linked pdf 404's :/

[http://www.gadgetnutz.com/2006/10/09/wind-traps-become- reali...](http://www.gadgetnutz.com/2006/10/09/wind-traps-become-reality/)

</comment><comment><USER21> [http://www.architectureandvision.com/attachments/article/492...](http://www.architectureandvision.com/attachments/article/492/GR_LF_PJ_073_120817_WP_01.pdf)

</comment><comment><USER31> I think there's probably some big issues with this article.

For $500 for 24+ Gallons a day even from a commercial perspective it'd have value in first world city settings during droughts for pretty gardens etc.

</comment><comment><USER32> Sounds great. Any evidence of this actually working?

<comment><USER18> Not sure about this actual device but mesh that captures dew that works of temperature differential does work and isn't controversial.

Here's one good link pointing out the benefits and problems of fog harvesting.

[http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/unit/oea59e/ch12.htm](http://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/unit/oea59e/ch12.htm)

</comment></comment><comment><USER33> "Bless the Maker and His water. Bless the coming and going of Him. May His passage cleanse the world. May He keep the world for His people. "

</comment><comment><USER34> Sort of odd that it wants to go negative on other efforts. Doesn't really add to the story but seems to be all about a few cheap shots.

</comment><comment><USER35> Are these not powered? How do these things overcome the laws of thermodynamics?

<comment><USER36> They are effectively solar powered, since they rely on a temperature difference.

<comment><USER37> Ubiquitous electrical outlets cripple 1st worlder understanding of physics. Film at 11.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> WARNING: AUTOPLAY VIDEO. Flagged.

</comment><comment><USER39> Next:

Another Tower Pulls Soup Out of Thick Air</comment>


GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources - <AUTHOR> https://qz.com/937038/github-now-lets-its-workers-keep-the-ip-when-they-use-company-resources-for-personal-projects/?s=1 <comment><USER2> I work at a large law firm that represents a lot of software companies. Our standard employee agreement forms have the usual default (company owns everything you create with its resources or that relates to the scope of your employment).

This default has always amused me because _lawyers never sign these kinds of agreements with their own law firms_. We spend most of our time writing contracts, memos, and other bits of work product that, in theory[1], are protected by copyright. Ethics rules and professional norms also give the clients rights in the work product they pay us to produce. A firm's partnership agreement _might_ address this too. But most firms don't even try to address who owns the underlying IP rights.

Moreover, it is extremely common for partners moving between firms to take all of their forms with them. The result is that people treat contract forms as-a sort of IP-free zone. It would not even be possible to ascertain the original authorship of most form contracts that cross my desk.

Historically, this hasn't mattered because law firms charged for hours worked. It will matter a great deal if firms shift toward offering more automated products that can be sold outside the billable hour.

[1] As with source code, there's also uncertainty about which aspects of a contract are expressive and which are purely functional. Only the expressive parts are protected by copyright.

Update: one project I've had in the back of my mind is to illustrate this point by crawling the SEC's EDGAR website and tracing the "genealogy" of bits of contract language in public companies' filings. (Companies need to file certain "material agreements"). If anyone has some suggestions for good text processing libraries that can help with this tracing, I would love to hear about them.

<comment><USER3> _The result is that contract forms have become a sort of IP-free zone._

Exactly. One of the sleaziest tricks used by Realtors (most Realtors are not lawyers) is getting clients to sign _their_ forms: their terms usually have the word "percent" hard-coded into the contract. Rather than opening the door to hourly or fixed dollar amounts, they insist that their forms are the "standard". I heard one recently say in a public forum that banks "require" these specific forms that only Realtors have... this is a total lie, and anybody that tells you that you can't negotiate to create your own contract for a deal should be prosecuted for coercion.

I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't. They _take_ value out of transactions -- equity that's taken literal _years_ to build up -- gone in one (fell) swoop. People need to be way more aggressive in their negotiations with real estate salespeople, and it all starts with the contract.

This is still a small, WIP, side project (free, open-source contract templates); however, you can get the idea: [http://ecosteader.com/docs](http://ecosteader.com/docs)

<comment><USER4> >I've been trying for a long time to alter the common perception that Realtors add value; they don't.

I don't know anything about the law so I hire a lawyer I trust. I don't know anything about buying a house so I hire a realtor I trust.

<comment><USER5> The type and amount of training required for those two fields isn't even remotely similar.

<comment><USER6> That is true. But the value added by a good realtor can produce as much value add to a transaction. I've talked to enough people who had bad realtors that I know they can literally be useless. But I've also worked with a buyer's agent who got 3% knocked off the price of the home I was buying. This is in the city of Boston, where most houses go for over asking, so I might have viewed this move as risky without my realtor's experience backing me up. And I had none of the issues people complain about online (no pushing a particular home inspector or lender, etc.) Additionally, I've done enough deals involving lawyers to know there are some incredibly crappy lawyers, despite all their training.

<comment><USER7> On the other hand, is it possible you could have gotten a lower price by not having a realtor? Since the seller wouldn't have to give up a percentage of their earnings to you realtor, they might have been happy to lower the price.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People keep complaining about how hard and expensive it is to attract top talent. This kind of measure is exactly how you do it. Provide an environment where employees feel trusted and empowered, pay market rate, screen properly instead of having applicants jump through hoops, and you won't have much trouble hiring.

Kudos to github for this, I'm impressed!

<comment><USER9> For real. I am an indie game dev who recently released his first big game on Steam. Just a week or two ago I had a prospective company tell me that, in order to hire me, I would need to sell them the entirety of my personally- developed IP and dissolve my interest in my own company.

Needless to say, I decided against that job.

<comment><USER10> That's an absolutely absurd request. I can understand if they said that you wouldn't be able to work on your game during business hours, or on your company machine, but to request that you dissolve your company and sell them your IP? That's insane

<comment><USER11> "It's worth $1B. Still want to buy it from me?"

<comment><USER12> I don't see a problem with this. If you put a price on that work, and they meet that price, seems like an equitable exchange.

<comment><USER13> But if they paid you that much for your IP, would you still work for them?

<comment><USER12> Well, at least for the payout period, assuming it wasn't all given in a one time payment.

Otherwise, it of course depends on what they're doing. It might be really interesting work that you get the chance to work with a lot of other very brilliant people to build something amazing.

If that's not true, then no, I'd probably go and start just writing fun open- source stuff all the time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Once upon a time, I was looking for a job, in straightened circumstances. I found a so-so match, and since I was in danger of missing a mortgage payment, I decided to accept their offer. Pragmatism and all that.

Well, I went in and picked up the documents, and told them I needed to read them before signing and returning them to the company. I looked at the IP clause, and it said the company owned anything and everything I created or invented while an employee, in any field of endeavor.

I called the founder to renegotiate.

"What if," I posited, "I write a blog post. The way I read this, the company owns the copyright on my blog post."

      > Yes.

"Or if I take a video of a climbing trip, the company owns that video."

      > We'd never exercise that right. But we reserve the right.

"Well, I'm not sure I want to agree that anything I create, even on my own time and property and with my own equipment, belongs to you."

      > Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I want to employ
      > someone who uses their creative energy for anything except
      > the company's business.

"Thanks for the clarification!"

My next call was to a realtor, I put my house up for sale. There was no way I wanted to be in a position where I would feel like I had no choice but to accept an offer like this.

I went through some hard times, but as it turned out, that blog that I did end up writing on-and-off over the years turned out to be valuable. Not directly in money, but in satisfaction. It lead to some work, but even more importantly, it led to communities like Hacker News and meeting programmers around the world.

If I'd agreed to that contract, there might not be a "raganwald" today.

<comment><USER15> "Now that you mention it, I'm not sure I want to employ someone who uses their creative energy for anything except the company's business."

Wow. That statement alone tells you everything you need to know about that person and what kind of manager they are. The fact that it was the founder is just...wow. Since it was the founder, if I was in your shoes I would have asked this fool if they took that same approach when they ever worked for someone else - that they never did a single thing that was creative outside of work. Yeah, we know the answer.

Also - "We'd never exercise that right. But we reserve the right." Don't believe that for a minute. My father once worked for a fortune 500 financial company (but he was an IT person) and his hobby was music. He self-produced an album. A little while later they let a bunch of people go who were all 40+. He declined their package so that he could sue them for what was clearly age discrimination. That company then tried to claim that everything he did in his free time was owned by the company and they counter-sued him for royalties related to album sales and public performances. Keep in mind his contract did not include any of the draconian language like what you turned down. The only thing it said was that he was an "on-call" employee who needed to make sure he was available on short notice for systems-related emergencies. So they used that to say that because he was "on-call" they therefore owned every single second of his existence.

You can't make this shit up.

<comment><USER16> Was it Joel Spolsky? [https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers- side-pr...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side- projects/)

<comment><USER15> No, but it sounds like he knows about this stuff all too well. His final scenario is essentially what happened to my father:

"We are kinda indifferent. If you piss us off, we will look for ways to make you miserable. If you leave and start a competitive company or even a half- competitive company, we will use this contract to bring you to tears. BUT, if you don't piss us off, and serve us loyally, we'll look the other way when your iPhone app starts making $40,000 a month."

FYI - my father's situation happened about 20 years ago in the late 90's.

<comment><USER17> I had just typed a reply to correct you that the late 90s were not, in fact, 20 years ago. Then I did the math.

I am now very sad.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> For anyone interested in the Alcatel horror story mentioned in the article, it's even worse than you thought:

 _Therefore his thoughts, which were characterised as "invention" in the decision, should be disclosed to Alcatel. The judge also ordered Brown to pay Alcatel's legal fees, which exceeded $330,000.[1]_

1: [https://www.law360.com/ip/articles/1899/appeals-court- affirm...](https://www.law360.com/ip/articles/1899/appeals-court-affirms-ex- employee-s-idea-belongs-to-alcatel)

<comment><USER19> Sometimes it feels like Kafka's The Trial is where the US court system takes most of it's inspiration from...

<comment><USER20> In think that in most countries, a large company will always win big trials.

Andrew "bunnie" Huang has written a very good 2-page note on this in: [http://bunniefoo.com/nostarch/HackingTheXbox_Free.pdf](http://bunniefoo.com/nostarch/HackingTheXbox_Free.pdf) (first two pages, but the whole book is a good read)

In the US it seems especially bad, since Americans seem exceptionally obsessed with "living the American dream" aka making a lot of money. Many people assume that if you have a lot of money, you must be a good person.

<comment><USER21> > Many people assume that if you have a lot of money, you must be a good > person.

I used to agree with that, but now politics has cleaved this into two.

A) If you're a democrat/progressive (Soros, Hillary, et al.) you're corrupt, greedy, immoral. And you got all that money via ill means. They must be stupid and anti-American be

B) If you're a republican (Trump, Murdoch, Ted Stevens, et al.) your earned it from picking up yourself by your bootstraps, the American Dream. And they must be smart people, they have lots of money!

And vice-versa.

As an aside, I'm increasingly seeing spammy "Soros is an anti-american progressive socialist communist" comments on other low quality forums. Which is interesting considering his investments, wealth, views on Russian, path to citizenship, and interest in helping economies move away from communism into capitalism. Post-truth, I guess.

<comment><USER22> I can't help being somewhat cynical and jaded on this one. I tend to think that people become wealthy through

      (1) inheritance,
      (2) something nefarious (greed, cheating, etc.)
      (3) working hard and the equivalent of winning the lottery, being rewarded for that hard work

I believe that I could maybe relate to the people in category 3.

<comment><USER23> except that statistically you will never meet #3 but will meet tons of #2 and #1.

<comment><USER24> Every startup/dot.com millionaire/billionaire is a #3. For every one of them there are 10,000 others who are just as smart and worked just as hard but their company just didn't pan out for any number of reasons.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> This is just putting into a contract what ought to be considered normal and reasonable defaults. I don't think they deserve special praise for it, rather companies that don't do this deserve criticism.

Whenever I've encountered overly grasping IP clauses in contracts I've always had them re-written so they only cover work which is done during working hours or related to <core_business>. No employer has ever objected to this, they usually have just been advised by lawyers to be ultra aggressive by default. One (English) employer struck the whole clause on the basis that copyright law covered them sufficiently anyway as by default works created "in the course of employment" belonged to the employer.

<comment><USER26> > No employer has ever objected to this

I've not had this luck, personally. They are always willing to forgo the job offer just to ensure that everyone has the same contracts. I'm guessing that it's going to be a size of business issue.

And the IP assignment clauses are, for the most part, getting worse and worse; my current one extends the assignment to a year after termination, voluntary or not.

<comment><USER27> Same here. In the past, I've tried negotiating the boilerplate IP assignment agreements tied to a new job and, in every single case/company, I was contacted by legal with a very clear demand to "sign it unmodified or GTFO".

For you Captains of Industry who are somehow able to negotiate your employment agreements, congratulations on having that opportunity--but I think that situation must not be very common.

<comment><USER28> It's a sign the pool of potential employees is large enough that concessions don't have to be made at negotiations. This is why we have unions.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> As a thought experiment, for people who agree with the idea that a company 'owns' all of the thought-output of an employee: Why should that mean only the valuable IP, and not _all_ of the thought-output, including the unpleasant parts. If an employee commits a pre-meditated murder, should the company be liable, as a partial 'thought-owner'?

<comment><USER30> Or if the employee made something that made a net-loss. We only hear the company knocking on the employee's door when the employee is earning a profit.

<comment><USER31> I actually might sign a contract like that. Most (all?) of my projects tend to lose money. This would make me more successful, not less. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> Look, this is nice for github employees, but it's worth noting that this is not an easy decision for all companies to make.

We (developers) aren't like factory workers cranking out widgets by the hour. We're paid to think deeply about challenging problems. For me, that means chewing on a problem for a long time, often when I'm not at work. Honestly, when a problem is challenging, I can't get it _out_ of my mind. I'm thinking about it, at least a little bit, on the weekends -- heck, maybe even while I'm sleeping. And those are the problems I enjoy the most.

When a savvy software company hires someone, they understand that this is how developers operate. They will offer handsome compensation because they _expect_ this.

Ultimately, competition for your thinking time is a zero-sum game. If you're working on a hard problem at work, you might think about it at home. Similarly, if you're working on an interesting side project you might think about it at work. You can't help it.

That doesn't mean companies should never allow side projects at all. There should be room for negotiation. But if we don't acknowledge the basic facts of the situation, then we aren't negotiating in good faith.

<comment><USER12> Companies can't track your thinking. They can know when you're using their equipment. I'm fine with them owning what I do with their hardware, networks, anything they pay for... but they can not own my off-time, and they most certainly do not own my mind.

What I build in my offtime is mine; this is in fact where every entrepreneur starts. What you're proposing is that all innovation should stay in the hands of the employer, and you as an employee are shackled at all hours.

I know that some states have different laws in this area, but CAs are strong, and no one owns what you do when off from work and using your own equipment but you. Do not ever give up that right or we all lose.

<comment><USER32> If the company wants all of your ideas, even the ones you come up with on the weekends, then they should offer you a higher salary than the companies that don't demand that time.

As it turns out, many companies do exactly this. And (apparently) their developers decided it was a fair deal. But if you don't like that deal, that's an entirely reasonable choice. In that case, just don't work for such a company, even if they offer better salaries.

It would be unfair to say "don't take the job if you don't like the deal" if there weren't other options, but the fact is that there are lots of other options. There are plenty of software jobs that don't include such clauses, especially in the non-profit and academic sector.

<comment><USER12> The problem isn't the single employer, it's when _every_ employer does this, and it's your only option, and this is the trend.

So we must resist it at all levels. And again, what you state is actually not enforceable in CA, as our laws protect your personal work. It might in fact be one reason why the valley exists here.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Very, very good. It shows the kind of trust in employees that I like to see. Depends a bit on how they will interpret "As long as the work isn't related to GitHub's own "existing or prospective" products and services" but I'd assume that it will be very reasonable.

Kudos, great decision.

<comment><USER34> I'm sure this is all idealistic crap, but I'd still love to see someone try it; I'd like to see a well grounded company include "even if it is related to <company>'s own existing and prospective products". A nice competitive taunt "Go ahead, try and compete with us, we dare you." Code is already covered by copyright, so it's not like anyone could take the repository and start a GitHub with it. Even if they could, not many people are going to trust the new fork because it's future is not backed by the same team and community (unless the existing team and community has become toxic, but, ideally, having this threat in place could prevent that from happening in the first place). Code is only part of GitHub's success, recreating the other parts isn't going to happen easily. No single person could know all the ins-and-outs of every important role in the company.

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> At all the companies I've run I always allow engineers to work on personal projects on personal time and have never cared if they did it on their work laptop. The only time I can see a hands off IP agreement being an issue and is when the project is commercial, in the same space as our product and is cannibalizing the company's user base which it seems Github has allowed in it's IP agreement. I've never tried to get a lawyer to work similar language into an IP agreement so I've just eschewed them entirely. Looks like we may have to get one if we decide to go after funding. Does anyone think sensible terms like ones used by Github will suffice for VCs or do they all want the draconian "all your thoughts are belong to us" IP agreement I've seen commonly thrown around?

Hopefully articles and practices like these will continue to become more commonplace and influence the current VC dogma.

</comment><comment><USER36> I work at a fairly large independent game studio and there is a similar arrangement with the developers here. The studio has developed a framework of Unity extensions that aren't open source, but that the developers are free to use in their own side projects without having to cede any ownership back to the studio if/when their game is released.

Even the fact that game developers are allowed to create other games outside of work, potentially with other non-studio teams is a super nice perk of working here.

<comment><USER37> Nice. I worked for an independent game studio once that wanted to own all IP for any sort of multimedia anything, since they were contract based and sometimes had to do other work besides just games if the client requested it.

Also they wanted IP rights for pretty much any ideas we had, including off company time, with the justification that we could come up with ideas to improve a game we were working on at any time, and also because the studio had a 'everyone can contribute to game design' mentality and we'd all be involved in design meetings from time to time. Which is technically true, but seemed so draconian.

I almost didn't take the job because of that clause, and I didn't publish anything during my time there. At least the people there were cool, though, and I still keep in touch with some of the people I worked with there, including the company president, who's actually a really nice guy.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> Most corporations I interviewed with have this policy, including Microsoft and some large banks. Otherwise it would be impossible to attract OS developers.

Also the agreement[1] is not completely rosy, it has some strings attached.

For example if you are working on CSS library, Github uses it and contracts you to make some patches, they might claim IP ownership over those patches. That is a mine field for OS project.

I personally would not sign it. It needs extra clause to clarify what projects are excluded.

> _The Company owns any IP ( "Company IP") that you create, or help create as > its employee or contractor, .... related to an existing or prospective > Company product or service at the time you developed, invented, or created > it_

[1] [https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip- agreement/blo...](https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip- agreement/blob/master/Balanced_Employee_IP_Agreement.md)

(I am not a lawyer, just a hobby)

<comment><USER39> Microsoft does not have a friendly policy in this regard.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Direct link to GitHub's employee IP agreement : [https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip- agreement](https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement)

</comment><comment><USER41> I always try to negotiate this. Since I _always_ bring value, effort and ideas from personal time and resources _in_ to the company, for free.

If they don't want to do that, then write down a big list of every idea and project you've been working on to date, including any domains you own and projects within them, and make sure they can't touch any of the IP you've already created.

Also: Be friendly about it.

<comment><USER42> I rejected an offer from a company that had a similar policy/procedure. Their contract stated that they own pretty much anything you do that's related to their business (which was huge and varied). But you were allowed to list any existing IP over which they had no claims.

That would have been fine and dandy, and probably even acceptable to me. But based on the wording of the contract, the IP clause still applied even after terminating your employment with the company. Which meant that while they might not be able to claim rights to my existing IP, ownership of any future IP could be called into question.

So, while I think your approach is good, there can still be issues with it.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I'm a lecturer/prof in Sweden and we have had this law for years. We own all our own IP. In other top tier Universities around the world the norm is that the university takes 20-50% of the IPR/equity. Needless to say that we are very happy with it (lärareundantag). However, a word of caution: it doesn't seem to make any difference when attracting top talent. My experience is that even in Systems Research, candidates don't factor it into their decisions. They just think - UK or Switzerland or Sweden. Because of that, i don't think it will catch on.

<comment><USER44> As a systems researcher, this is definitely something I would consider. Do you know of other European countries with similar policies? In the UK the situation in most universities now is that the university owns everything. Previously Cambridge I believe gave a large share to the academic, but this was dispensed with/reduced in the face of considerable protest.

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> And they encourage remote working .

# starts polishing CV #

<comment><USER46> Every GH employee I've ever met has been very satisfied with their job. They come to meetups and hand out stickers but then they stay and contribute and do presentations about things they are passionate about. Most sponsors show up with a bribe and then do a marketing talk and leave. I'm sure my bar is set lower than some, but it means a lot to me to see happy employees.

</comment></comment><comment><USER47> This just sounds sensible. I know how companies in general like to think about this but I just don't understand that.

If I had a company, I'd ask my employees to solve problems and write software that the company needs to sell products or service. I'd pay them to do that and give them the necessary tools to do their work. When they would deliver, we would roughly be even.

Now, if an employee is doodling some code of his own on the laptop given to him by my company, why would I care as long as he will do the things the company asked him to do? If he was doodling on his own laptop the company laptop would just be unused. A laptop doesn't effectively wear out because of personal use. In effect, when it comes to software engineering I would be paying for results.

For reference, in auto shops the mechanics can often use the company tools and facilities for personal evening/weekend projects or repairs. That's because the shop is closed anyway and the shop doesn't consider it a loss if their employee is fixing his own car, or his wife's car, or friend's car, during after hours.

I understand why companies require their employees to not do the same work for competing companies or for free. That would be like letting the employees cash in twice for the same solutions, and contributing to the competition.

But trying to own what employees might do with company computers on their spare time doesn't make sense, much less trying to own what employees might think on their spare time.

If such a rule is enforceable an employee who did get a profitable idea not related to his line of work would just keep his mouth shut, quietly resign and slow-start a company of his own or sell the idea to some other company. Nobody would be so stupid anyway as to invent something while being bound by a possessive employment contract, and then bring it up just to tranfer the IP to their employer for free. On the other hand, if the employer is reasonable and doesn't try to own the idea it's much less of a hassle to make a deal with them and continue with the current employer and letting both parties profit from the idea.

</comment><comment><USER48> Kudos to GitHub for doing this. We had a lawyer look into this a long time ago and they said it wasn't possible. They managed to do it. We'll consider adopting it in [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/issues/1225](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com/issues/1225)

<comment><USER48> Issue were the lawyer looked at this [https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www- gitlab-com/issues/861](https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/www-gitlab- com/issues/861)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> When I was an employee of BizRate/Shopzilla in 2005 I would take my laptop downstairs to my car parked in the company parking garage, and code on my personal project for exactly 1 hour from 12-1 my lunch break. But the laptop was charged with electrons from shopzilla's office plug and the parking garage turns out is still technically on the company's property.

<comment><USER50> Beside your point, did you happen to use their wifi?

<comment><USER49> I seem to recall being really careful with a usb drive to move everything to from laptop but it was all insane. No one wanted the code I was writing and making me jump thru all those hoops ruins the creative process. Bravo GitHub. This should be a new standard.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER51> The GitHub post on it: [https://github.com/blog/2337-work-life-balance-in- employee-i...](https://github.com/blog/2337-work-life-balance-in-employee- intellectual-property-agreements)

</comment><comment><USER51> Fwiw, I don't think this is a new thing for GitHub employees, as the headline suggests, this is some best practice that GitHub is releasing for others! At least, I've enjoyed this benefit since I joined GH earlier this year.

<comment><USER52> Agreed. In my couple years at GitHub side projects have been encouraged, not discouraged. It's been incredibly refreshing. Interestingly enough, I have worked on side projects the least at GitHub because I really enjoy my employment now and get paid a fair wage :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> When I was an employee at Salesforce.com, their legal department claimed my pre-existing AppExchange app _potentially_ conflicted with their future product roadmap and asked me to relinquish ownership of the app within 90 days.

My Lawyer advised me that a "fire sale" of the assets would make Salesforce liable for the difference in devaluation. So I stood my ground and kept the IP.

Claiming prior art as competitive is a different stance than claiming ownership, but it ultimately resulted in terminating the relationship.

The irony was that I drank the Salesforce start-up Kool-Aid and developed the IP _on their platform_ prior to joining.

</comment><comment><USER54> I guess otherwise no GitHub employee could ever use GitHub for a personal project, could they?

</comment><comment><USER55> Wow, that's really nice. At Google, they basically told us, "There's the standard IP rule where you own anything that you work on in your own time that doesn't compete with our business... Of course we pretty much do everything, so good luck finding something that we can't claim."

<comment><USER56> When I was at google they said "we have a standard contract we'll most of the time be happy to sign that says we claim no interest in your outside project. Submit your project here and we'll get back to you ASAP".

They often put out memos about the types of things that were not okay and later when they were ok. For example then they were exploring games in google plus back during the Farmville crazy they said "Sorry but for the time being no games please .. unless of course you want to make open source demo games for our APIs/Platforms". A year or so later they said "okay, games are fine now so feel free to submit to get your contract signed"

The best thing about that is there's no ambiguity because you have a contract for your project. Github's policy is awesome but you're still at their mercy if you thought your side project was unrelated but they happen to think it is. In fact the larger any company gets the more likely you don't know all the things being worked on. A contract for your side project clears that up.

<comment><USER55> Hmm, the impression I got from the training video I watched was that it would be unlikely for Google to approve your outside project most of the time. But maybe it was just the way the specific presenter worded it.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Big step in the right direction. I also believe this will have huge impact on the morale as well. If you offer enough courtesy to your employees you'll receive a lot more in return. Personally, I believe this can boost productivity in a different way, because if the employee is challenged with a different set of problems other than the "same ol' " during the work time, the experience can be directly applied to the possible future employer's problems.

Granted, this can have downsides too.

</comment><comment><USER26> It's nice that they explicitly spell this out. I'd personally still be leery of running personal projects on company time/property, simply because of the "existing or prospective products and services" clause; it's amazing how many products and services large companies are prospectively looking into.

The cost of not using company hardware or time is that of a laptop and working outside your "9-5"; simple insurance against the potential costs.

</comment><comment><USER58> One of my clients* is a fashion startup here in Zurich. The founder started his computer vision startup with material he discovered during his research at the ETH.

He had to pay only a quiet low sum to get the IP. The sum was measured by how long it would take him to transcribe (literally type) the algorithms out of his head.

(*I run a tech recruiting agency; happy to help people who want to move to Zurich.)

</comment><comment><USER59> Honest question for those more legally-versed than me.

CA labor code protects inventions developed on one's own time without using the employer's "equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information." [1]

Would "supplies" cover incidental food/drink provided by the employer? e.g. I grab a bottled water on my way out of the office, and drink it at home while I hack on my app after-hours on personal equipment. Does that mean my app is developed with my employer's supplies?

That would seem pretty crazy, however on the extreme end if I was subsisting _entirely_ on work snacks while developing my app then maybe that's different?

[1] [http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/labor-code/lab- sect-2870.html](http://codes.findlaw.com/ca/labor-code/lab-sect-2870.html)

<comment><USER56> Why is every time I see this law referred to people seem to have only read the first clause, not the following clauses

> a) Any provision in an employment agreement which provides that an employee > shall assign, or offer to assign, any of his or her rights in an invention > to his or her employer shall not apply to an invention that the employee > developed entirely on his or her own time without using the employer's > equipment, supplies, facilities, or trade secret information except for > those inventions that either:

> (1) Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the > invention to the employer's business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated > research or development of the employer; or

> (2) Result from any work performed by the employee for the employer.

So no, it's not just things you did at home on your own time and own equipment. They must also not be related to your employer's business etc ....

What's related would be up to a court/judge if it came to that but there's certainly a spectrum. You work on Call of Duty 27 and try to make an FPS at home. Certainly related. You work on Call of Duty and try to make a Candy Crush Clone at home. Probably related (seems like it would be considered competition for game market). You work on Call of Duty and try to write your own game engine at home. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ . You work on Call of Duty and try to make a Tinder clone at home. Now , maybe we're getting in the unrelated territory? You work on Call of Duty and sell baked goods at home. Probably not an issue.

If you work at a giant company like Sony that does ISPs, Health Insurance, Movies, TVs, Cameras, Video Games, Batteries, Music, LCD displays, etc etc well then you're probably going to have a lot of things that are in that ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ spectrum

Of course IANAL.

If you want to do something outside of work that's even possibly in any way shape or form remotely related to your company's line of business get them to sign a contract saying they won't claim any rights in your project. If they won't consider working for a better company.

<comment><USER59> I think you are missing my point. Obviously if you work on projects related to your employer's business that is a conflict, even when executed in a clean room.

The question is, assuming all else is above board (totally unrelated to employer's business, on your own equipment, on your own time...), can you get nailed by eating a bag of work-provided Cheetos while hacking on your project?

<comment><USER60> > [...] an you get nailed by eating a bag of work-provided Cheetos while > hacking on your project?

I doubt it, but it is not the important point.

> Obviously if you work on projects related to your employer's business that > is a conflict [...]

It is _not_ obvious I think. If one interprets this rigorous it would be impossible to work on any kind of low-level, tooling or infrastructure software, as it might be used indirectly by your company (or its competitors), so there _is_ a conflict. IANAL.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER61> Thank you Github for being so smart and awesome! I have more respect for Github, now!

For those who disagree, saying but why?, how?, the company owns that time...

Programmers should get paid for their contribution to a project! Not for their time!

For the love of sanity, in software, there is no correlation between the time you put in and your output! Someone's input about how to solve a specific problem could be more powerful and important than my 40/week of programming for a year (solving it the wrong way)! And those who disagree are topically the ones who measure the progress of a project by number of lines of code!

This policy motivates the hell out of the employees and also can attract smart developers who have other projects! And, you want to hire those who have other projects!!!

</comment><comment><USER39> Good on Github. Not all companies will even make small concessions in this realm so I applaud them. I'm hesitant to write this but there are some false comments specifically about my employer in this thread so I will.

I work for Microsoft and our policies are draconian. They of course make the standard claims of anything created on their hardware, using their software, or transmitted on their network. But to be exempt from their IP claim it also cannot be related to Microsoft business, or "anticipated business, research or development of Microsoft." Which of course is everything in the software world. It makes it particularly difficult since we're supposed to evangelize their stack and toolchain. But because of these policies I pay out of pocket for my own hardware, dev tools, as well as exclusively use GCP/AWS.

They do have a program they're very proud of where they let you use software you're given as an employee if you're developing an app for the windows store, but it's so vague as to be legally useless.

Take this for what you will.

</comment><comment><USER62> This makes sense _for_ Github (and probably for a lot of other software firms). I mean if you hire people to write code and be creative it doesn't make sense to turn around and create demotivating conditions upon their writing code and being creative...there are good constraints and bad constraints and constraints that create an inherent split between a person's best code and what they do for money is not a good constraint. For people motivated to make stuff outside of work, a separate laptop creates a physically different context for "what I care about" and "how I pay the rent".

There are probably businesses where it might make sense to have IP policies: perhaps those with huge infrastructure costs like the automotive industry. But for industries where the trend is away from patents and licensing, trying to own all the IP does not have much economic value.

</comment><comment><USER63> I work at Wolfram Research (The company that makes Mathematica and Wolfram alpha). Our company also supports and encourages employees to work on personal projects. We are also allowed to responsibly use (not draining bandwidth running games all night or run bitcoin miners) office resources for personal projects.

<comment><USER64> This post is about the IP right to that work, not whether your company allows you to work on personal projects.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> From the article:

> _As long as the work isn't related to GitHub's own "existing or prospective" > products and services, the employee owns it._

It's strange this statement isn't getting much attention. This sounds like one of those catch-all type of clauses which allows Github to go in any direction they want and potentially still claim your work is their IP in the future. I'd have to read the contract to be sure, of course.

Whether they would do that is another matter. Probably not. Maybe another company that adopts similar policies would though.

If you're going to be building a company while working at another, I think it's more safe to just use your own time and property so there is definitely no claim (assuming your contract doesn't have one of those nasty clauses saying the company owns everything you work on while employed with them).

</comment><comment><USER66> I still remember when I had to sign employment contract that claimed ownership rights for "all the original creation".

 _(even in my own time, own equipment, not related to work)_

Highly demotivational, knowing they own everything:

\- cooking recipes

\- yoga sequence

\- drawing with my kids

\- gardening

\- photography

\- urine and other waste material

I believe that giving power to the employees empowers them!

</comment><comment><USER67> The company I currently work for sadly claims all IP. Not just the things I do for the company but all IT related stuff I do in my free time and even all non IT related things. I could write cook book and it would belong to them. I tried to get that changed but they were only willing to cede IP rights to non IT related products but will still remain a usage right. At least they are willing to transfer all rights to coworkers or me if we ask them to do so for a private project. But even though they seem willing to grant exemptions I'm put off by such contracts. At the end of the day only the contract matters and good will does not.

</comment><comment><USER68> I really like the idea of it. Especially if the working hours are not very flexible - downtime is inevitable. Whether you are waiting for something, or it's just one of those days (or mornings or whatever). I always have some side/fun/educational projects active and it would be really cool to work on them on such time and, very likely, beneficial to the company because of new skills I'd pick up, etc.

But that's in theory. Curious how do such things work out in practice :) I guess you need really strong technical leadership to pull this off, to convince non-technical execs that it's not time wasted, etc.

</comment><comment><USER69> I have to be honest, I'm surprised this is seemingly such a rare thing in the tech industry. I mean, in the various (admittedly small) companies I worked for as a web developer, I never had anyone worry about what I was doing outside of work hours. Heck in most cases they explicitly said I could do what I wanted outside of work and that if it made money... well good for me I guess.

But hey, they were small companies. Usually with a total staff count until 20. Guess it must be totally different at a multi national corporation with an actual legal team on call and what not.

<comment><USER70> This was the opposite for my anecdotal experience. All the small companies (20-200 people) wanted to own everything you produced. Even on your personal off hours time.

The larger companies I worked for didn't care so long as it doesn't directly compete with the flagship product.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> My last company was a acquired by a company based in California. Under CA law, you are entitled to your own IP if done on your own equipment. So, I had a separate laptop. The employment agreement had a clause where you were to list all of the IP that you had owned. But, it was ambiguous about whether I was retaining ownership or turning it over to the new company. So, I asked their legal: am I listing what's mine or what's yours? The reply was an ambiguous "yes". I quit after 1 day. A colleague, with the same issue lasted for a month.

</comment><comment><USER72> It's not a personal project if you don't own the IP. If it Was The opposite way then the employees would not do these projects, in turn they will learn a much narrower range of skills.

</comment><comment><USER73> Thank you git hub.

I'm not a developer but i do code in my free time, and used company resources. and always had to jump through hoops. (doing work on my lunch hour, down times, etc, and ever affecting our bottom dollar or performance of machines).

I even developed things for the company such as directories, signature generators etc.

This is a great step forward for everyone, and i hope more companies adopt it.

</comment><comment><USER66> > The employee had not written down the idea during his employment, but had > told his employers of its existence.

But why?

Source: [https://www.biicl.org/files/558_16bld2004.pdf](https://www.biicl.org/files/558_16bld2004.pdf)

Would be nice to dig deeper and learn more about all the circumstances...

</comment><comment><USER74> My father was extremely careful about this when he wanted to start his own company. He quit his large corporation, and then worked at much smaller company until what he wanted to do solidified in his mind. He was extremely scrupulous about not using company issued materials to do anything.

</comment><comment><USER75> Well done GitHub, I've had some nasty documents thrust upon me in the past in which effectively gives a company claim to anything you create, even if not company used property. Was post employment contract so I refused. This is turning the tide and frankly I applaud it.

</comment><comment><USER76> If I were on the job market, this would be a big positive influence on my decision to apply. It's not so much a matter of whether I would take advantage of this perk or not. It's a very good reflection on the management's attitude towards its employees.

</comment><comment><USER77> so anything you create on paid time is theirs, fair enough.

'developed or promoted with existing Company IP' I wonder if someone writ a blog post on their company blog about their side project or something it would be company owned all of a sudden, or if they use an open source Github project?

'developed for use by the Company' what if the company just wants to use it and so claims they would be a customer so it was developed for use by them?

'related to an existing or prospective Company product or service' also sounds vague and how is something defined as related too?

I love how open they are about things but this still seems a bit onerous to me.

</comment><comment><USER78> Here's the repo, hosting the documents - [https://github.com/github/balanced- employee-ip-agreement](https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip- agreement)

</comment><comment><USER79> Does anyone have any articles about that first story? That's horrifying...

</comment><comment><USER80> Only in the US is "IP" transferable in such evil ways that this is even worth mentioning. In European jzrisductions such "IP" is non-transferable by law (droit d'auteur principle).

</comment><comment><USER81> Alcatel vs Evan brown :

From alcatel's view point

[http://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown](http://everything2.com/title/The+Thoughts+of+Evan+Brown)

</comment><comment><USER82> I feel like I'm living an the twilight zone. An idea is not a scarce good! The Pharaoh is _not_ the 'Mighty Son of Ra'. A triangle has three sides.

</comment><comment><USER83> This is really cool of github. I'm impressed with this and can imagine this makes them look more attractive for future employees!

</comment><comment><USER84> The opposite of that shouldn't even ever be on the table. Ridiculous that this is looked at as something special, only in USA.

</comment><comment><USER85> I imagine developers would have somewhat non-transferable job skills if they couldn't use GitHub while working for GitHub.

</comment><comment><USER86> That's a great move. Companies buy your working time, not you. Your brain, your mind and your thoughts belong to you.

</comment><comment><USER87> Wow, this is amazing. It sounds like a win-win as it will encourage creativity and personal projects.

</comment><comment><USER88> Too much hype. I think they just did it because GitHub.com counts towards company resource.

</comment><comment><USER89> I could see this as an ultimate perk and a really powerful way to attract top talent. Wow.

</comment><comment><USER90> If I recall correctly, github was Tom's side project while working at powerset.

</comment><comment><USER23> wait. wasn't that the law in California already?

or am I thinking of non competes?

<comment> awinter-py Yeah -- this seems not to differ from the law in california / wisconsin.

[http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2...](http://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/2870-2872/2870)

These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'.

Many california-based companies will echo this language in the IP assignment section of their employment contract.

These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused.

<comment><USER91> "These states already assign employees work 'not using equipment', 'not resulting from work', 'not in the employer's area of business'."

This is close but no cigar: You missed " or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer; or"

Which for larger companies, is huge.

Admittedly though, this is _the_ thing that employees always seem to miss in that labor code.

"These protections don't help you if you're at, say, a big 3 company with a lot of businesses. I know someone who asked in their contract negotiation at google if G could provide a comprehensive list of areas of business and G refused."

Even if we had, it wouldn't have mattered because of the above :) There's no way we could give a list of current research to random prospective employee.

That said, it would make no sense to try to enumerate all areas of business that and keep it up to date. Instead, when we get requests, we just ask the relevant business owner.

<comment> awinter-py is there case law on prospective area of business?

<comment><USER91> Honestly, not really. Most of the cases that get brought are resolved fairly quickly, from what i can see.

In particular, the ones _actually_ between employee and employer, employees tend to lose except when it is very clear cut. IE if employer's interpretation of their R&D, etc, is not crazy, they tend to win.

So if employee's has idea for juicing oranges, and works for skateboarding company, employee's probably gonna win.

If employee has idea for juicing oranges, and works for blender company looking into other things, employee's gonna lose, even if employee didn't know about it, etc.

But there's also a lot of cases out there that are just proxy wars between companies where a claim about IP ownership gets tacked on. These don't usually make for useful caselaw.

<comment> awinter-py You're a dev+lawyer with large company experience -- if you were writing a federal law on employee IP assignment, what would it look like?

<comment><USER91> This is tough. I'm generally very pro-employee on this one.

However, i've seen both sides of this. There really are crazy people, and plenty of them, who will try to use this to extract money from their employer, etc

Generally, i'd say my view falls somewhere into what a small number of european countries do, and i think that would probably work well here:

Employer still owns IP related to business.

For the situation here (own time, etc), if you generate IP in such a situation (IE not related to business, etc), you must notify employer of that IP.

Your employer has 6 months (or whatever) to buy it from you at fair market value.

If they refuse to do so, it's yours.

If they believe it's related to business, and you don't, well, you can fight it out in court if you want.

The only downside to this system is that for large numbers of innovative employees, it generates huge overhead for the company even just to manage the process.

<comment> awinter-py From a legal standpoint I'm with the company -- if I pay someone to invent it's not unreasonable that I own what they invent.

From an economics standpoint I think companies benefit from attracting innovative people. If you are hiring inventors, you want people who do it habitually and the best of those will feel uncomfortable signing away their free time. From this standpoint a company should worry about a new hire who _doesn 't_ object to a 24-hour IP assignment clause.

I haven't seen hard numbers on this but I imagine that patent applications went from more individuals in ~1900 (wright brothers era) to more corporations circa 1950 (IBM transistor era). I'm sure there are many reasons for this (larger companies in the 50s, postwar employment trends, less low hanging fruit in basic research). But it would be great to see that trend reverse.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER92> This is amazing. Definitely a nice perk of working for GitHub

</comment><comment><USER93> This is neat. Finally found a company doing this.

</comment><comment><USER94> So does Netflix.

</comment><comment><USER95> Looking at the alcatel case and github agreement, i think even alcatel made employees sign an agreement like this, they would have right on Brown's idea.

</comment><comment><USER96> "...As long as the work isn't related to GitHub's own "existing or prospective"

Very good and very honest.

</comment><comment><USER97> Exactly how it should be.

</comment><comment><USER98> nice challenge to google which went after the Otto guys

<comment><USER99> Not really; Otto wasn't a side project unrelated to Google's existing and planned business.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Well done.

</comment><comment><USER20> "But rather than negotiating a deal, Alcatel fired Brown and sued him for ownership of the idea. After a seven-year-long court battle, he lost and was forced to spend three months at the company's offices, without pay, writing out the code to implement his solution."

I deeply hate the judge who made this verdict. You must be truly devoid of human feeling and common sense to explain this as a reasonable application of the law.

<comment><USER101> It's morally bankrupt, but legally correct.

<comment><USER102> Why is he obligated to implement a solution? The IP is the idea, not the implementation of it.

<comment><USER103> I'm not familiar with the case, but others are saying that it was the terms of a settlement, not the court ruling.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> I agree, and I think that people should be able to make the distinction between legally correct and morally correct. (It's very easy to make a Godwin here)

Is it that uncommon to factor in the situation? I've heard of judges in the Netherlands who find people guilty, but give them just a small fine. Likewise, they might rule that _technically_ , someone is guilty, but that this application of the law is not in the spirit of the law.

In the US, this might be less common. However, Steve Jobs was legally responsible for Apple backdating options in 2006. He plays the "Oh, I didn't know"-card and sure enough, an exception to the law can be made.

However, a woman in Texas was jailed for 8 years for crossing a wrong box on her voting form. Now suddenly "I didn't know" is not a valid excuse.

The law is not that independent. Screwing over someone powerful is likely to yield repercussions, even if it is morally and legally the right thing to do. Screwing over someone without power mostly goes without consequences, so this happens more often.

<comment><USER104> We detached this subthread from [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921849](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13921849) and marked it off-topic.

</comment></comment><comment><USER105> TBH it's a lovely thought, but it sounds like a legal nightmare waiting to happen. Your employees have access to proprietary code, how do you stop their code from being "tainted" by that access?

</comment><comment><USER106> Can someone please clarify this for me.

An employer is paying six figures to an employee. In exchange for said salary, employee works set hours and within that time, is supposed to work for the employer and anything they create within that period is owned by the employer.

However, in the comments. It seems like everyone wants their cake and eat it too? Which is to say, if I'm working for you between the contracted hours of 9 to 5. And if I am working on a personal project that the employer is not going to benefit, I should keep the IP. Even though the employer is paying for my time?

Note, this isn't about working outside of the contracted hours at home, nor is it about staying late and using company resources to develop said project and claiming IP belongs to the employee.

For large companies like github. They could probably be more flexible. But for smaller companies, every working daylight hour to them is needed and required for projects to deliver on-time.

These very same companies would argue that all code/IP belongs to them. That they woudn't want employees working on pet projects in THEIR paid time.

Kinda sounds to me, that people here wants 3 things.

1) Pay me a large wage > north of 6 figures. 2) If I code something for me during working hours, it's MINE. 3) If I code something outside of working hours, it's also MINE.

Sounds like bratish entitled behavior no?

Can someone set me straight here? I don't see how this could be good for employers who don't agree with this.

Oh and btw, if you want to work on your own thing, being paid by a company, that you keep the IP. It's called being an entrepreneur and setting up your own company. So instead of saying kudos I wish more companies do this. Go start your own today and you have that freedom NOW!

<comment><USER107> There's lots of problems with this line of thinking. One, it encourages "butt- in-seat" thinking, which is inefficient. If I deliver what you wanted delivered in the time allotted, I should be free to work on whatever I want. Of course, a manager wants to squeeze every drop, so if you've finished they'll say "I have some more work for you". But best believe you'll never be fairly compensated for that work ( at most companies anyways. Obviously if the company is Facebook/Google you can have a massive impact and will be flying around to work on whatever suits your fancy ).

Look at it from a contractor's point of view: a contractor will have many other things that they can deliver and make money from, so adding a bit of polish to _your_ project vs delivering another client's makes less sense.

</comment></comment><comment><USER106> Personally I think this is wrong.

Employers should expect developers to work on company IP within contracted hours and any new code/IP is owned by the company.

In addition. Developers who have their own side-projects own that IP and if they work outside of contracted hours and generate new code on THEIR projects. Well, they own that IP also.

One caveat though. Developers should allow employers to go through their generated code, to ensure that developers aren't stealing company IP.

Oh but if a company wants some code that the developer generated in his own time? Well, negotiations should start. The company should pay for that!

</comment><comment><USER108> Ok

</comment><comment><USER109> Pet projects are not necessarily good for a company:

1) Code is not necessarily an asset, it is also a liability: needs to be maintained, tested, documented, etc. This has a non-trivial cost.

2) Engineer salaries are usually more expensive than a license.

3) Experience working using internal frameworks/libraries/etc can be harder to trade in the marketplace, especially if you are not the author.

4) It is hard to keep up feature parity with commercial/open source alternatives.

5) Internal projects do not necessarily lead to more employee satisfaction. They can be usually lacking around user experience and can be frustrating to use.

6) Some internal projects have purely political motivations, like self- perpetuating the authors in the company.

Finally, if you absolutely require to start an internal project, but it does not provide a competitive advantage: open source it.

<comment><USER110> You might want to move the last sentence to the beginning. Your opening comment could easily be interpreted as "companies should forbid pet projects".

<comment><USER109> Don't judge a book by the cover.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER32> As developers, we're biased towards one view of this issue, but it's intellectually lazy of us to just say "Yeah, we deserve it! Because... fairness!"

Last December, Joel Spolsky wrote about developer side projects, and honestly, he's right.

[https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side- pr...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-projects/)

My view: In _some_ companies, depending on their business model, it might be reasonable to ask to own your own work on side projects. But it would be reasonable of them to expect you to give up something in exchange (e.g. smaller salary).

<comment><USER111> > But it would be reasonable of them to expect you to give up something in > exchange (e.g. smaller salary).

Except when the side project is useful for your employer and you've effectively contributed free, unpaid labor to developing it.

<comment><USER32> The question here isn't whether your should work on side projects at all. It's about who owns the side project when you're done.

<comment><USER112> I wonder if the person doing all the work should own it, or the person who did none of the work and gave no capital?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


DualShot for iOS, but um... before Samsung - <AUTHOR> http://www.itsjoeturner.com/?p=40

<comment><AUTHOR> Sounds like some discouraged, young developers could use some encouragement...</comment>