On Saturday, June 09, 2018 04:03:40 Nick Sabalausky via Digitalmars-d- announce wrote: > On 06/09/2018 01:47 AM, Walter Bright wrote: > > 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.) > > Maybe naive, maybe not, but my policy is that: Any hour of any day an > employer claims ***ANY*** influence over, must be paid for ($$$) by said > employer when attempting to make ANY claim on that hour of my life. > Period. > > There are already far too many > would-be-slavedrivers^H^H^H^H^H^H^employers who attempt to stake claim > to the hours of a human being's life WHICH THEY DO *NOT* COMPENSATE FOR. > > If an employer *does not* pay me for an hour of my life which they > *claim control over*, then the employer WILL NOT BE MY EMPLOYER. Period. > > If others held themselves to the same basic standards, then nobody in > the world would ever be slave^H^H^H^H^Hpersonal-property to a business > which makes claim to a human life without accepted compensation.
Well, the actual, legal situation doesn't always match what it arguably should be, and anyone working on salary doesn't technically get paid for any specific hours. So, that sort of argument doesn't necessarily fly. Also, there _is_ potentially a legitimate concern on the part of the employer. If you use your free time to write the same sort of stuff that you write for work, you're potentially using their IP. In particular, they really don't want you going home and writing a competing product using all of the knowledge you got working for them. And legally, attempting to do anything like that (in the US at least) will almost certainly get you in legal trouble if your employer finds out. The real problem is when employers try to claim anything unrelated to your job that you do in your free time. _That_ is completely inappropriate, but some employers try anyway, and depending on which state you live in and what you signed for the company, they may or may not be able to come after you even if it's ridiculous for them to be able to. - Jonathan M Davis