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.


In reply to Re: Re: How do you view your employment? by dws
in thread How do you view your employment? by dragonchild

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