<story><title>Bumble claims IP rights on employee&apos;s open-source libs</title><url>https://twitter.com/arkann1985/status/1467202744947822594</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cassianoleal</author><text>Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I&amp;#x27;d be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them.&lt;p&gt;They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first time this has been brought up, that the contract was standard across the org and was originally written for managerial types and C-suites, and that the company had never even considered taking over an employee&amp;#x27;s off-hours work, open source or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;I said good, then it should not be a problem to remove the clause. They said they would have another discussion and would really like it for me to join. I said great, then once you issue me a contract with that clause I&amp;#x27;ll be happy to join, assuming I hadn&amp;#x27;t found something else.&lt;p&gt;They never came back to me. For years I wondered if anything had actually changed. Reading this tweet I&amp;#x27;m glad I declined.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>brundolf</author><text>To add an anecdote: on my last job search I got offers from two different but very similar companies (both around ~200 people).&lt;p&gt;I got one first, read through the contract, saw the standard clause about owning your whole life. I told them it was a deal-breaker if we couldn&amp;#x27;t get it changed. I got the standard response &amp;quot;oh we never act on that, lots of people here have side-projects&amp;quot;, etc. I told them if that was the policy, it needed to be in writing. They escalated internally, talked with legal, etc, but the decision-makers ultimately wouldn&amp;#x27;t budge. I walked away, and told them in very plain terms that their legal department was responsible for how things turned out.&lt;p&gt;Shortly afterward I started the process with the second company. Got to the end, saw the clause, told them it was a deal-breaker. Discussed it on multiple calls with different people, eventually the CTO himself who was still reluctant to change it but was sympathetic. Eventually they were able to come back with a contract where that entire section was cut out. I took the offer and it&amp;#x27;s been a great job so far.&lt;p&gt;I guess what I&amp;#x27;m saying is: hold out. Make a stink about these draconian contracts, and you&amp;#x27;ll eventually get through and find someone willing to be reasonable. Who knows, if enough people draw a line in the sand maybe it&amp;#x27;ll become a big enough roadblock that they&amp;#x27;ll stop putting it in the &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; contracts.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bumble claims IP rights on employee&apos;s open-source libs</title><url>https://twitter.com/arkann1985/status/1467202744947822594</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>cassianoleal</author><text>Many years ago I had a job offer at Badoo in the UK. After many rounds of going back-and-forth with the contract, me trying to better understand certain clauses, them going back to the lawyers, etc. I told them I&amp;#x27;d be happy to sign if they removed the caluses that stated pretty much anything I created on or off hours belonged to them.&lt;p&gt;They went back to the lawyers and came back to me saying that this is not the first time this has been brought up, that the contract was standard across the org and was originally written for managerial types and C-suites, and that the company had never even considered taking over an employee&amp;#x27;s off-hours work, open source or otherwise.&lt;p&gt;I said good, then it should not be a problem to remove the clause. They said they would have another discussion and would really like it for me to join. I said great, then once you issue me a contract with that clause I&amp;#x27;ll be happy to join, assuming I hadn&amp;#x27;t found something else.&lt;p&gt;They never came back to me. For years I wondered if anything had actually changed. Reading this tweet I&amp;#x27;m glad I declined.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tomxor</author><text>I had a similar situation with my current job, but with a happy ending. The contract was &amp;quot;standard&amp;quot; but others who also read it thoroughly had the same issue with broad, overreaching clauses that essentially attempt to claim complete IP ownership of everything the employee ever touched. The directors were very reasonable and understood my concerns, we eventually managed to remove or reword all of the offending parts.&lt;p&gt;The origins of these clauses appeared to be entirely from third party lawyers, probably derived from some boilerplate contract. I presume their priority is to maximise legal &amp;quot;protection&amp;quot; for the company at all cost... even if it drives employees away, so it&amp;#x27;s not necessarily something the company explicitly asked for. Whether or not you are able to push back against them probably has more to do with the company culture and whether the leaders or hiring managers are sympathetic to developers and how the FOSS world really works.&lt;p&gt;I think this is probably true for most small companies, that it&amp;#x27;s incidental and intended for protection... but obviously in this case Bumble seem to actively be exploiting these clauses for gain rather than protection.</text></comment>