On the flip side, how reasonable is it for an employer to claim ownership of outside-of-work code? And how do you evaluate someone who works at such a place -- certainly, that could be a large incentive to avoid extracurricular projects...
Or an incentive to avoid really strict IP agreements. If an employer asks for ownership of everything you do 24/7/365, what they are saying to you is that when you leave, your portfolio will be a huge blank for the years you are there.
That might be fine if they're prestigious, such as perhaps Google, but you really ought to think about taking a few years off being "public" carefully in the context of ever getting a job or being invited to co-found something...
That's a very good point. What's the best way to get across to a interviewer that you would love to work on outside projects, but simply were not allowed to?
I've been at a company that discouraged blogging, so this does happen.
"What's the best way to get across to a interviewer...?"
Just tell them. I wouldn't stress too much about it. If the person hiring you doesn't realize that there are tons of good programmers out there who don't blog, then you may not want to be working for them (i.e., they're newbies).
As far as I know, those cases are pretty hard to win (in my non-lawyerly observations of the law). It also varies from state to state, I believe.
I've had to sign a couple of documents that said that any work I created, at work or outside, that was in the domain of the company was owned by the company. This company happens to do software engineering, but I'm not particularly scared since my job has absolutely nothing to do with software engineering. I do, however, do "software engineering" outside of the company on my own time. I believe in order to prove that they own the IP to whatever else I produce, they'd have to prove that either I created it on their time, or that I created it using skills or tools I gained while employed there. They'd also get the IP under the work for hire law, if, say, I happened to be hired to produce some piece of IP, but I'd say that's pretty obvious.
