On 6/6/2018 2:17 AM, Russel Winder wrote:
It is worth noting that any employer who understands software
development and is involved in software development will write into the
contract of employment that all software created by an employee at any
time is the property of the employer. However, they must also have a
system for explicitly allowing employees to work on code in their own
time (or even on company time) that is then contributed under some
licence or other. The point here is that the employee effectively has
first refusal on all software created.
Oh, employers do try that. I would negotiate what is mine and what is the
company's, before signing. In particular, I'd disclose all projects I'd worked
on before, and get a specific acknowledgement that those were not the company's.
When I'd moonlight, before I'd do so, I'd describe the project on a piece of
paper and get acknowledgement from the company that it is not their project.
And I never had any trouble about it.
(These days, life is a bit simpler. One thing I like about Github is the
software is all date stamped, so I could, for instance, prove I wrote it before
joining company X.)
