Apple engineer in need of OSS maintainers

Re:Apple engineer in need of OSS maintainers by _bxg1 on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @11:18AM (#22935670)

These policies, when they exist, tend to be very entrenched in the organization. The legal department will push management to keep them so they can avoid the associated risks.

I would look for another job. While these clauses are relatively common, it's also relatively easy to find employers with less restricting policies. You'll probably have better luck at tech-led companies, in general. I think I've also heard that California's employment law doesn't allow this sort of thing, FWIW.

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Re:Apple engineer in need of OSS maintainers by ace32229 on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @11:22AM (#22935699)

What legal risk is the company at without a clause like this?

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Re:Apple engineer in need of OSS maintainers by ghostpepper on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @11:25AM (#22935737)

I am not a lawyer but my guess is their fear (no idea how plausible) would be a situation where an employee creates an open source project and uses it at work in a way where it becomes critical to the business, then later leaves the company and demands some sort of royalties/licensing

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Re:Apple engineer in need of OSS maintainers by megous on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @05:39PM (#22939608)

If it's opensource under the usual OSS licenses, the former emplpyee can only demand something for further work/improvements, not for already existing code.

And companies typically have no trouble critically relying on OSS projects they have no chance of forking/maintaining if something changes that they can't accept.

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Re:Apple engineer in need of OSS maintainers by saagarjha on Tuesday April 21, 2020 @11:27AM (#22935756)

Your employee creates your direct competitor.

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