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Re:Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes by rootusrootus on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @10:50AM (#16638461)
That is disheartening to hear. I've been doing software for over 20 years and I have yet run across such a provision in my employment contracts. I do not hold a strong ideological position on free software but if a potential employer asked me to sign something like that I'd just walk away. I do work on my own side projects, and the most I would ever agree to is that my side projects won't be in the same area or in any way compete with any of the products my company offers (easy for me because I don't work for a place like Google...).

The notion that a company owns you is just silly IMO. They make a big point of informing me once a year that I am employed at will and can be terminated at any time for any reason or no reason. So I am clear with them that outside of my work week, everything I do is mine. This is business.

Re:Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes by zekevermillion on Wednesday March 21, 2018 @10:56AM (#16638514)
I absolutely agree with you in principle. The language in question does not capture inventions you create on your own time with your own equipment, etc, as a matter of law. Copyright may be somewhat different but would need to view the entire contract -- a good one would include a carve-out for inventions, copyrighted works, etc., outside the scope of employment. This is typically where an employee should focus negotiating efforts -- not on the standard risk-allocating language, but on the carve-out. Personally I would never sign a noncompete, and I would never sign an invention assignment agreement except in a limited circumstance such as pledging a bit of software to a foundation to better enforce the licensing terms, that kind of thing. But then I am not ever going to be employed by a large tech company and have the luxury of my personal rules.