> Oh, please. It's standard industry practice for companies to claim ownership of everything a software engineer comes up with, even "on their own time".
I have not yet worked at a job where this was the case, and I would decline an offer to do so. It is unusual here, but I know of a friend who signed such a contract for a video game studio, but then only for games specifically and not IT in general.
Mostly thanks to unions there are plenty of options not to work for these leeches.
> The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time".
On the other hand it's extremely difficult to say that the innovations I contribute to my employer are conceived exclusively during paid hours.
> So anyone who think this is some evidence of Google being, or becoming, evil is either seriously misinformed, or just engaging in unthinking hate of Google, or both.
Without even addressing the conclusion you can surely see how this reasoning is faulty. If all evil things that were ever considered common practice were excused for only that reason, we'd probably live in a pretty shitty world.
I have not yet worked at a job where this was the case, and I would decline an offer to do so. It is unusual here, but I know of a friend who signed such a contract for a video game studio, but then only for games specifically and not IT in general.
Mostly thanks to unions there are plenty of options not to work for these leeches.
> The problem is it's extremely difficult to say, figure out when someone might have invented some super clever idea which can be pantented "on their own time".
On the other hand it's extremely difficult to say that the innovations I contribute to my employer are conceived exclusively during paid hours.
> So anyone who think this is some evidence of Google being, or becoming, evil is either seriously misinformed, or just engaging in unthinking hate of Google, or both.
Without even addressing the conclusion you can surely see how this reasoning is faulty. If all evil things that were ever considered common practice were excused for only that reason, we'd probably live in a pretty shitty world.