What your employer can and can not claim varies by state. Some places such as California have fairly good (for the employee) laws on this because the issue has been tried in court several times.

But you really don't want to rely on the default interpretations of things by courts. Ideally you would clarify your position with your employer first. The Australian Sysadmin Guild (SAGE-AU) has some sample clauses they recommend inserting into contracts if you are doing Open Source work. Please note that the clauses are written with respect to Australian law, so you probably can't just cut and paste them (unless you are in Australia), but at least it provides a base to think about.

-ben

I've mixed feelings on the issue. Having been bumped from small VAR to small VAR as they moved or went under, then bombing badly with my own consulting business (I'm no business man), and for the first time in 10 years having a paycheck come from one place for 3 straight years, I find myself torn on the issue.

The fact that I had a decade of military service gave me plenty of expirience in giving up my own personality, but it didn't quite prepare me to give up my brain and my hobbies. I can't say that my employer was ambiguous about the terms of employment (which I give them credit for). It was clear that part of the price was that my work was theirs no matter when, what, or where that work was. When you raise 3 kids a steady paycheck means a stable life for them.

I think it will take a few years of realization before the tide swings back toward the rights of the employed, but until then, steady pay has to be the decisive factor in my life, which is a shame but in my small world the needs of the many (the kids) are bigger than the needs of the one.

I just hope I live long enough to see the first global IT strike ;>

Personally, I'm either "on the clock" or I'm not. If I'm not, you don't own me. If I am, then you do. Simple as that.

Do you know this for a fact? Are you sure you haven't signed anything to the contrary? Do you have it in writing that work done outside your work hours belongs solely to you?

How exactly do you view yourself? I know that I have always viewed my activities as either

• For my employer(s)
• NOT for my employer(s)

It isn't whether you view your activities as not for your employer, it's whether they legally are or not. If there's one thing that Professional Employees and Works for Hire shows, it's that you really have to pay attention to details and explicitly state what does, and what does not belong to your employer.

Particularly in this economy, it's going to be downright impossible (not to mention hazardous) to ask for an adaptation of an existing IP contract.

Realistically, what's the worst that could happen if you were to ask?

My guess is that they'd say no, and perhaps pay extra attention to what you were up to for a while.

If that's true, then you risk very little by asking. One of the guys in my group went to the company president a while back to get sign-off to work on a particular Open Source project. He persisted in the face of some minor flack, and eventually got written permission. (In this particular case, we were using some Open Source technology, and we were able to make the argument that it was worth to not have to reapply our bug fixes each time the techology was updated).

You often risk very little by asking. Sales and Marketing folks know this -- they get told "no" a lot, but they still get the hot dates.

The worst? I think tilly has shown us the worst case. Since my donations to the community aren't necessarily as profound as his, I can't compare directly. However, I feel that I would face the possibility of losing rights to all the code I've developed on my own time during the tenure of my employment. Isn't that what this dilemma has taught us? And isn't that bad enough?

-fuzzyping

First, I work for an educational institution, so they're very familiar with, open to, and supportive of the idea of sharing knowledge.

Second, I didn't sign jack when I took this job.

Third, after revisiting some of the code I recently wrote while under tremendous time constraints, I can't think of one person who would want to claim ownership, including me. Which is kind of sad. I worked really hard on that code.

If things get any worse, I'll have to ask you to stop helping me.

See, here's the thing. While I agree that what happened to Tilly was horrible and that perhaps there should be some protective laws in place, the fact is that we still have the ability to sign away a good number of our "rights." Most of the laws to the contrary are based on the idea of non-intimidation rather than ignorance. For example, the law says you can't sign away your right to a minimum wage, because otherwise employers would be lining up left and right to screw employees. (For those of you who are wondering at this point, no, I am not inherently against "The Man" (tm), I just realize that there are people in the world who are willing to take advantage of other human beings for the sake of nothing more than money.) Here's my point: we have two choices...we can either go the route of putting minimal protections in place, enough to prevent abuse of the system by either side, but while still allowing employees great flexibility in what they are willing to give up, or we could go the route of the government coddling everyone and putting protective laws in place left and right clearly delineating what the employer can and cannot ask for in any given contract. I prefer to trust in people, not in government.