> It's absurd for any company to say they're going to attract passionate programmers, and then expect them to just roll over and give up projects that were started before they even joined at the company.
What I find more absurd are companies that want to hire employees that are passionate and work on side projects but also require employees to sign extremely broad “we own your IP” contracts. It’s like they are saying, “We want to hire the most passionate! But we also want to own all the work they do outside of work. Free labor!”
It seems like the industry as a whole is moving towards standardizing around such a double requirement in hiring, and I do not like that trend.
The industry isn't moving towards this. The IP agreements I signed at start-ups in 1994, 1998, 1999, and so on all had functionally identical terms. And more, like the duty to in good faith pursue patents whenever merited and assist IP attorneys with the creation of filings and sign over patent rights for nominal sums. [Edit formatting and typos.]
I wasn’t referring to the IP clauses when I said moving towards. I meant it in the context of employers glorifying passion and moving the baseline job requirements towards having projects outside of work.
What I find more absurd are companies that want to hire employees that are passionate and work on side projects but also require employees to sign extremely broad “we own your IP” contracts. It’s like they are saying, “We want to hire the most passionate! But we also want to own all the work they do outside of work. Free labor!”
It seems like the industry as a whole is moving towards standardizing around such a double requirement in hiring, and I do not like that trend.