Yup - or at least that’s what Google tells their employees. Want to publish something - you’d better get permission, and stick the Google name on it. And based on my limited understanding of the US contracts, is also true in practice.

There are some exceptions depending on local laws and contracts though, so it’s only mostly and not always true.

This isn't correct: if a Googler writes some code from scratch, which is unrelated to their work, on their personal time, and using their personal laptop... then it's definitely not owned by Google.

There could be gray areas where code ownership could be disputed, but in general your employer owns only the intellectual property it paid for.

Source: I'm a Googler (until next month).

Not true. You need explicit permission (there is a process for obtaining it, and it is very lightweight as I've done it myself). The general idea is that you get permission without much hassle if you develop something that doesn't compete with Google. You need to argue your case otherwise.

Source: I'm a Googler that went through the process before.

Edit #1 for all Googlers reading this: search "IARC" internally and you should land on the proper page to kickstart the process.

Many companies make claims over their employees' intellectual property. How much of a claim they actually have legally is a different question, which depends on the country (and sometimes state) where the employee works, and companies routinely attempt to claim more than they legally can.

Compare e.g. https://thebusinessprofessor.com/en_US/property-law/californ...

I bet Google lacks the copyright for many of the projects they claim.

Maybe true, but I am unwilling to try my luck. I mean, the process I mentioned above takes 30 minutes [1] if it's clear you aren't competing with Google and so I don't see a major issue about playing it safe and have written consent to develop your idea/project.

[1] you fill a form with the general idea description, you explain succinctly why it doesn't compete to any Google product, and you acknowledge you won't use Google time and resources to develop it. Then a committee reviews it and in ~1 week you get your approval or request for more details.

It takes maybe 30 minutes to fill out, but the O(days) approval latency is what absolutely killed me. No way to do impromptu commits to random non-Google-license-approved projects, no way to hack together something with friends over a beer, no way to quickly bash together a proof of concept and release it the same evening.

It might work for people who chisel away at their own long-term one-person pet projects, but breaks down if you're used to quickly hacking away collaboratively in various groups. Especially if you're an active member of a hackerspace.

Many countries have a "formula" (legal definition) for a "contract", which include fair exchange of something for something else, e.g. time and labor for money. If Google forces their developers to work for free (labor for nothing), then it fails to meet legal definition of the contract.

IMHO, such "forced labor for free" is a form of slavery. Slavery is forbidden by law.

If a developer want to publish his project under Google brand, then exchange may be considered as fair (project code for Google branding).

> I bet Google lacks the copyright for many of the projects they claim.

Good luck taking Google to court.

Btw, Google actually publishes this documentation externally.

https://opensource.google/docs/releasing/

They removed the `go/iarc` mirror recently, now seemingly only available on the wayback machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20210710210932/https://opensourc...

Well that interesting. Thanks for pointing that out. Wonder why they did that.

Thanks, I didn't know this. I thought it was only internal stuff.

The IARC process is only necessary when Google might own copyright in the first place (those gray areas I mentioned earlier).

I went through the IARC process 2 years ago for a startup I was about to found in Tokyo, and obtaining clearance was easy, as you say. It's an extra precaution to avoid future litigation, but not legally required if you keep your personal coding activity clearly and provably separate from your work activity.

Double-check your employment contract. The offer I received (and declined, primarily for other reasons but this was on the list) in 2017 clearly stated that it had to be unrelated to any of Google's work as a whole, and in fact to Google's actual or anticipated work - not just to the employee's assigned work.

There is very little code that a Googler could write that is unrelated to their employer’s business. You’re almost certainly going to need an explicit carve-out, as other Googlers in the thread have pointed out.

There’s a difference between: unrelated to your job, and unrelated to the business as a whole.

In some locations, employers can’t claim copyright on works unrelated to your current role.

In many locations they can. I paid my own lawyers to review a Google NYC job offer and they said, yes, Google can enforce this clause.

(Obviously this is not legal advice, talk to your own layers, etc.)

Are you sure?

Not in the “haha, yes of course”, in the “I’ve spoken to HR and have it writing” kind of way.

I’ve heard this is not true from others, it is simply true in certain geographical regions where local laws override the contract you signed.

"The provisions of this Agreement requiring disclosure and assignment of Inventions to Google do not apply to any invention that I have developed entirely on my own time without using any of Google Property (as defined below) or Google Confidential Information, except for those inventions that either (i) relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to Google’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of Google or (ii) result from any work or services that I performed for Google."

> (i) relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to Google’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of Google

That's the catch. Not related to what _you_ do at Google, but related to _anything_ that Google does. Pretty much all the stuff I wanted to work on in my spare time while employed at Google could be seen as related to Google's business/research, as Google does a lot of things. And that's how Google seems to read this too, considering how the Open Sourcing documentation [1] is written.

[1] - https://web.archive.org/web/20210710210932/https://opensourc... “As part of your employment agreement, Google most likely owns intellectual property (IP) you create while at the company. Because Google’s business interests are so wide and varied, this likely applies to any personal project you have. That includes new development on personal projects you created prior to employment at Google.”

OK. So the things under google GitHub organization are personal projects for which googlers didn't bother to get the permission?

Often they are not entirely personal in that they wrote the code using 20% time (so this is code paid for by Google) and use them as part of their job and/or make them available to other users internally. So Zx might be used inside Google somewhere.

Since they started out owned by Google, you need permission to open source them.

But how much company support they have and how popular they are varies.