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Agreed on that. I was replying to the following:
OriginalGriff wrote: and one or two contracts have gone further and claimed ownership of everything produced while employed by them: which covers time outside working hours as well
I think it's totally an employers business what I do in my spare time as long as it concerns them. For example if I drink too much, party too hard or practice extreme sports, and as a result call in sick from work every monday or at least a month a year etc. In the Netherlands the employer pays for sick employees. And they cost A LOT!
Another example is studying (or absolutely no studying!) during my private time.
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Sander Rossel wrote: What I do outside office hours is none of their business though!
That isn't true even in a general way. Certainly not in the US and probably most everywhere else as well.
Lets go through the reasonable cases.
- You commit a felony hate crime Saturday night and the press come knocking at your work to ask about you on Monday. You get fired right then.
- You have a written contract with an company, you are not even an employee, but the contract states that any work in the financial industry belongs to them (any work, any time) and further there is a morals clause that specifically allows them to terminate you if you commit any serious crime. And you fail to meet one or both.
And the unreasonable ones.
- Drugs. You do something Saturday nite and get tested Monday. And you are fired Tuesday for drug use.
- The boss doesn't like you much but keeps you around because he isn't much of a manager, but he did see you on a date with his daughter on Saturday night - so you get fired Saturday.
- You write a letter to the newspaper that gets published on sunday but expressing a political view opposite that of your boss, and you get fired Monday.
- You get a tattoo on Saturday because you have been cancer free for 10 years. You boss doesn't like tattoos, so...
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Yeah, I already commented somewhere that anything you do in your private time, but influences your boss' time is your boss' business.
Most of what you say doesn't hold true in the Netherlands though. You need a VERY good reason to fire an employee, getting a tattoo or not getting along is no good reason...
If you really want to fire an employee (especially when he's been with the company for some time) you better start building a dossier and document every reason to fire that employee. All of them added up might be a good reason, although it's probably still going to cost you a lot of money to have him fired.
If you own a small company with little profit a bad employee can literally ruin you and there's little you can do...
My dad's employer has a few employees who have been sick for at least two years (you know, they do some lifting and strain their back or something) and they're still paying for those people (they can't be fired).
Things work a little different here than in America  /  (sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse) 
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Sander Rossel wrote: Most of what you say doesn't hold true in the Netherlands though
Fair enough.
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OriginalGriff wrote: ownership of everything produced while employed by them: which covers time outside working hours as well
I had a contract that said that. I queried it - what about PooperPig? "don't be silly, of course that's fine - we just mean work related to what you do in this company"
"Good oh!" quoth I "then change the contract wording."
It took about three or four drafts before I was happy to sign - even though it wouldn't really make a blind bit of difference because, as I understand it, the signature is only absolute proof you have read that copy of the contract - you are still bound by a contract in law regardless as to whether you have signed it, if you continue to work there, unless you can prove that the contract had not completed negotiations. So if they'd just said "tough!" I'd have no option but to accept it or leave.
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My contract contains that but I'm pretty sure it's legally unenforceable outside things done while working. The implication would be that you are working 24/7 and that violates the EU labour rules.
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IBM and another company I worked for once had this provision, but it was eventually admitted and tested in a court case that such claim of ownership of what the employee does on his own time and with his own equipment is invalid.
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As others are saying if written on company time then they own it, but I say how is it licensed? If a piece of software is available to others under a certain license I would say it applies to you as well.
Along with Antimatter and Dark Matter they've discovered the existence of Doesn't Matter which appears to have no effect on the universe whatsoever!
Rich Tennant 5th Wave
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Legally, you probably can't do that (depends, check contract, I've had one that said I could take 30% of the code).
In practice, you can. No one's going to know, and no one's getting hurt so no one has any reason to try to find out if you did anything.
Or at least that was until you posted about it under your real name. Now there would be reason to suspect you.
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harold aptroot wrote: Or at least that was until you posted about it under your real name. Now there would be reason to suspect you.
Oops! 
I'm not a thief. I suspect I could take it if I asked. If I can't I'd write something similar in my spare time.
I was just wondering how others thought about the issue and it's pretty much what I thought
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I think as long as the methods are generic code that can be used anywhere, and they're not connected too, or utilizes company proprietary code (usually interface related), you should be okay. I've been given the go ahead to include such methods and techniques in any article I write for CP, as long as I follow the fore-mentioned criteria.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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Nope, I'd have to change some namespaces, but other than that it's pretty generic code. As I said, some of it is taken from the internet.
It's not like I want to take some Controls with our company logo on them
Actually I have thought about writing an article about one of those libraries before.
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Yes, but you are an Outlaw Programmer, that certainly mitigates your obligations a litlle bit. 
[Flags]
public enum Bool {
True, False, ForSure, Maybe, ProbablyNot, Depends, NotDecidedYet, Undefined
}
private interface IShy { }
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If you write a general log in script for a website on company time and then send yourself a copy of that script to use on your own personal website I think ethically you're fine. However, if you make that script available to the competition or compete with your current employer then you've got a problem.
I think the intent of these restrictions is "we don't want our developers writing code for the competition".
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Yeah, I've got an anti-competition clause, or what's it called, in my contract. In my case I can't do anything for a direct competitor while or three years after employment (but who are our competitors?).
That last part goes without saying
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My understanding is that those types of clauses are pretty much unenforceable here in Australia under anti-competitive laws... Once you stop working for a company your obligation to them ceases. Unless they want to pay you until the expiry of the no work clause!!
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_Damian S_ wrote: My understanding is that those types of clauses are pretty much unenforceable here in Australia
Same goes for the Netherlands, but an employer can try...
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I've only been asked to sign one of those one time, and I refused. It essentially inhibits your ability to work in your chosen field. If it was at all enforceable, the big companies in Silicon Valley wouldn't be able to hire each others employees.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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You were paid, so it ain't yours.
You might be able to claim intellectual copyright, but that would cost you a Hell of a lot more time (and lawyers' fees) than just writing new libraries -- they can't stop you from using your brain to do something in a similar way when you need to do something similar.
I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!
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Mark_Wallace wrote: they can't stop you from using your brain to do something in a similar way when you need to do something similar.
Yes they can.
See Apple vs Samsung
If you develop something new for a company then that new idea is theirs not yours. If you reproduce the idea, even using different methods, it is the idea that still belongs to the company.
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That's only true if the idea is patented.
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BobJanova wrote: That's only true if the idea is patented.
That is simplistic.
If in fact you do start from scratch and write something similar then, at least in some cases, you are allowed to do that. It depends on implicit and explicit contracts where one is.
However that doesn't stop legal challenges. And in such cases one side will attempt to show that it is a copy (modified or not) and the other will attempt to show it isn't.
Neither is a sure thing.
Given that and presuming that that one really did re-write it then, legally, one can only hope that what one created would be deemed significantly different enough that it would be ruled unique. But at best that is risky.
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Sander Rossel wrote: Suppose I created some libraries at work
Wherever I've worked, any work done for the company becomes the property of the company. Of course, open-source and other publicly available information referenced in these works is not part of the company's IP, even though their code may be included. The terms of use of the open-source licenses always hold.
Sander Rossel wrote: I could re-create them at home in a couple of days
Recreating work based on your learnings is permissible (that's what devs do throughout their career), as long as it doesn't infringe on patents, and even then, may be permissible by licensing use of the patent. Chances are, this will not apply to you.
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
/ravi
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote: Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Good, because I was going to sue you if any of the above DID apply to me 
Luckily we don't have patents of any kind. That would suck if I wanted to re-use my idea's 
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Technically, it's only theft if you get caught. Otherwise it's serendipitous coincident development.
Will Rogers never met me.
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