They made me an offer I couldn't refuse (1997)
33 points by classichasclass
33 points by classichasclass
Oh hey, this is a very old blog post of mine. Happy to answer any questions, though of course IANAL.
I don't think I ever knew the System 7.5 stickies tool was originally yours! MYNetwork saved me quite a bit of time, though, and I learned a lot from reading what you wrote around that time. Thank you.
You’re welcome! It’s always nice to hear my stuff's been used.
That was a really productive time for me — I’m still using ideas I developed then. (The BLIP protocol is used by Couchbase Mobile's database sync.)
I often wonder if I should publish my work anonymously instead of tied to my public identity. Much of the success of software is in free open software, and in direct conflict with most corporate employment contracts.
I wonder if this could cause any risks downstream.
For example - a friend of mine that's employed by Google was forbidden from publishing one of their side projects by the legal team. (It was written by them in their spare time, not using any Google code).
What would happen if they had instead published it anonymously (without asking legal)? IANAL, but I assume that if the legal team found out, they could demand the project to be taken down, and any licenses the code is under could be invalid (because they weren't granted by the rightsholder).
This is not to say that I think anyone should worry about it, or that people in these situations shouldn't publish their work anonymously :)
Do you know if they forbade it because of fears of reputational damage due to the Google affiliation (meaning your friend could publish it after leaving the company) or were they claiming IP? I’m guessing it’s the latter but I’m curious.
There is presumably something more than just claiming IP, as there are some useful published open-source projects that bear Google copyright notice immediately next to the notice that they are not official Google projects but personal projects of some employees. (Hosted e.g. on GitHub inside Google org).
If something like this ever came to legal blows, the codenaming approach would not hold up. That was clearly anticipated I think by the authors of California employment law in their phrasing "reduced to practice". Having the idea before taking a job would not seem to be enough.
Also in the WFH era there are no real fixed work hours, so how do you prove that your personal project was not done on employer time?
As far as I know the only surefire way to protect yourself is to negotiate a contract with your employer that is more employee-favored than even Cali law