

Ask HN: What legal rights do I have over side project source code? - tmsh

Say I've been working on a project for a year. I'm not quite done, but I decide to join a firm as a software developer. Short of open sourcing everything I've done, do I have a way to continue development of this project in my free time? Does anyone know of any legal documents that are already prepared in this regard? Or of other legal strategies?<p>I can imagine that the company, and their code base, will perhaps legitimately claim that as soon as I start working on that -- I will be 'affected' by this code, and so it becomes difficult to determine if my side project code is my code any longer.<p>I could seriously see this being an issue in a couple of months. At any rate, do people remain independent contractors or consultants for this reason? Curious what other people's experiences are.
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patio11
I am not a lawyer, but the question doesn't require a "legal strategy" so much
as it requires an agreement between you and your employer that your side
project does not pose a problem. Why don't you talk to your employer, tell
them that you working on your own time provides immense value to them
("Training that you don't have to pay for!"), and ask them to simply write a
letter or memo saying "We're aware of it and have no problem."

Litigation is merely the penultimate stage of a negotiation which broke down
many steps before.

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tmsh
Thanks. That sounds exactly right. For my purposes, this would be for future
employers (I basically took a year off to work on this project). But I imagine
a memo would be all I needed on a new job.

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tmsh
Just another quick thought. I suppose to be completely safe, I could try to
work in a technology area that was as different as possible from what my
project is on (mostly real-time graphics, c++, etc.). Perhaps that would keep
them separate if it were ever a legal question.

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teaspoon
Are you in the United States? What state are you working in?

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tmsh
Yes, in California.

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alnayyir
The only state I'm aware of that for sure guarantees ownership of projects
worked on in free-time while an employee is California. Otherwise, you're
going to need to provide your locale.

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tmsh
Good to know. Yeah, I'm in California. Thanks.

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hga
Since the state of California has decided that such "we own you" contract
provisions are against public policy, the only risks you are running if you
don't tell your new employer are that they might fire you if/when they
discover your side project and that you might have to hire a lawyer if they
sue you purely on these grounds.

If they aren't asking for pretty much all your available effort (hours per
week and so on) and there's no real overlap between what they do and your
project (so there's no legitimate possibility of trade secret law coming into
play) I don't see any need to borrow trouble and bring this up. Better to ask
forgiveness and all that.

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tmsh
Another good to know. Thanks.

I think I agree with your last thoughts there too. Very helpful. I mean I'll
be honest with them as much as possible. But there's no need to confuse things
until there really is overlap like you mention.

At a place like Google or Microsoft, where there are huge code bases, I would
probably have to declare things immediately. But otherwise I could probably
wait and see. Thanks again.

