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A comment on Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the U.S. on an L1B visa. Parent comment

Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by fishywang on Sunday June 14, 2020 @02:17PM (#23519914)
The open source part you described is different from non-compete, and is way more common (and makes more sense). https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2016/12/09/developers-side-pr... offers a good explanation why this is needed from employer's point of view. (disclaimer: I linked that article mainly for the explanation part. I don't necessarily agree with all its advises)

I don't know which giant tech company is your employer. But at least Google has a very streamlined internal process you can apply for to let Google release the copyright of your side project to you. (disclaimer: I worked for Google, and in particular worked somewhat close with the people reviewing those cases for a few years)

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by ghaff on Sunday June 14, 2020 @03:00PM (#23520309)
It seems a lot of people hear about non-competes being not generally enforceable in California and assume that means it's a nirvana with respect to personal IP/moonlighting/etc. Or even that it means there are never non-competes that will cause a potential employer to walk away, enforceable or not.

Lots of California-based companies have strict policies about ownership of projects that you do on your own time. And there are certainly companies outside of California that don't have non-competes and which have liberal policies about open source contributions.

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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by tombert on Sunday June 14, 2020 @02:21PM (#23519940)
I don't work for Google, and sadly, while there is a process for getting approval to open-source something, it involves a lot of emails and waiting. I have been waiting since December to submit contributions to the TLA+ model checker.
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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by saagarjha on Sunday June 14, 2020 @02:36PM (#23520050)
Sounds very familiar ;) Processes like these make it very, very difficult for employees to work on open source; at most they might have approval for one or two projects that are directly used by the company.
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Re:Amazon added a non-compete after the employee entered the... by fishywang on Sunday June 14, 2020 @03:01PM (#23520324)
I do agree that your employer's clause are far more restrictive than the common ones seen around the valley and unnecessary.
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