Dude, that's just idiotic. Just stop making stuff up.

Dear KiloByte, You clearly just made that up. That is a patently untrue statment. Both Windows and Office are bult with the Microsoft Compiler.

Don't make stuff up.

-Foredecker

Fair enough :) But I work there and I feel it is quite fair. Ill tell you why: Microsoft treats me very well. I learn an awful lot working at Microsoft. If (or when) I moonlight, Ill use this knowledge. This will benefit me greatly. For me, its a fair deal.

What I feel people are assuming is that the assignment of any IP developed by employees by default to Microsoft is someone a problem. What many dont realize is that unless it directly negatively impinges on Microsofts business - you get the IP. In many cases you get all of it and Microsoft gets nothing. This is especially true when people come to work at Microsoft and they have projects in-flight, or products already in the market.

Here is another way to look at it. Lets say you were an employer - maybe you own a small software firm that specializes in writing software for robotic control in manufacturing plants. Lets say you took the route where you let Employees do whatever they want in their spare time and had no claim to anything done outside the office.

Now, Bob comes along and writes some cool new robotic control software. Its not exactly like your stuff, but kind of close. He puts it up on a web site and you notice some of your customers posting questions about it in his forum.

You pretty much have one recourse - immediately fire Bob and sue him for non-compete. But this may suck - Bob is a nice guy! Your wives are good friends, your kids go to the same school and both your families go to the beach every 4th of July. Bob was one of your first and best employees. You even give him generous profit sharing.

So, how would you feel Mr. Entrepreneur? What would you do?

Now, lets say there was an IP policy in place - similar to Microsofts and most other companies. In that case, Bob would have had to ask first and the conversation could have gone smiting like this "Hey! Thats a great idea. its cool if you want to spend your own time on this. I like it so much that well make it a company product and Ill give you 25% of the profits. Ill even loan you our spare robot for testing." Without that policy, that conversation probably wouldnt happen. Heck - Bobs spare time is his right?

Many commenters seem to feel that what they do on their own time is their own business - damn (or even fuck) their employer (go look at the comments). Employment is a two way street. If you want your employer to treat you fairly, then treat them fairly as well. Showing a modicum of loyalty isnt a bad place to start.

Ok - so there seem to be lots of Slashdot commenters that dont like this kind of policy. Ok, thats groovy. Everyone in the US is at liberty to work for companies that dont have those policies. Nobody is making them work for Microsoft, Google, Oracle, Apple, IBM, Facebook, Amazon, or HP.

-Foredecker

Hey! Thats a good one.

Serously though, my posts are not malformed until I publish it on Slashdot. :) For example, Slashdots submitter strips all the diacriticals

For example slashdot turns this <p>Don&#39;t</p> into this <p>Dont</p>

-Foredecker

Fair enough :) I think its accurate to say that Microsoft's policies are very liberal for the US. Its cool that in places like the UK employees are more at liberty to do things outside of work without any employer entangle ments. Sure! I think that NHS is a gret enabler for individuals and entrepenureship. I'm somewhat of an oxymoron in the US. I'm quite conservative, but I'm highly infavor of President Obama's health care initiatives.

The absurd restrictions as you call them are the norm in the US, and for most US companies that have offices abroad - though local laws may enforce different employee and IP agreements. You may not like it, but if you refused to accept them, then you would have a really hard time working in the US. Which may be just fine for you. There are great places to work all over the world. With respect to funding - see my other post. Also, is "MS can go fuck themselves" really the best you can do? Really? -Foredecker

Really? Have you looked at your employment agreement or corporate policies carefully? Even if there are not any expclity restrictions in either place, there are state and federal laws that protect your eomployer against many employee behavirs they may not like. What would your employer do (and I'm not asking you to reval it, I know you don't want to be a paid shill) if you started competing directly with them in your off time? I suspect they wouldn't be too happy abou tit. I'm also pretty sure they could fire you for it (not that they would, they are probalby pretty groovy people). Like many other posters have pointed out. The vast majority of companies have very, very strict IP policies. For most, antying an employee does - work related or not - belongs to their employer. My point is that Microsoft's policis are very, very liberal and favor the employee. The only way they could be more liberal is if hey didn't exist. -Foredecker

It is highly unlikely that Microsoft would screw Bob (the real name of Paint.NETs author). Its just not the right thing to do. It is very unlikely that Microsoft would tell Bob to stop working on paint.net. First, it would make Bob very happy, second its very, very unlikely that Paint.NET would be materially impactful to anything Microsoft would do. Of course, I cant say this with authority, but I know Bobs management chain really well (I used to be his skip manger) and we just wouldnt do this.

I know slashdotters love to assume that being a developer at Microsoft is a mind-numbingly boring, tedious, manual, excruciating, soul-crushing bureaucratic exercise. This couldn’t be further from the truth – especially in Windows.

People that work at Microsoft , like Bob, work for real people. Human beings. Nice folks. Mangers, like myself enjoy treating people fairly, liberally, and nicely. It makes us happy. It engenders friendships. It is essential to making work fun and enjoyable.

I know folks just dont want to believe it, but Microsoft has some of the most liberal and supportive policies of any company, not just high tech companies. We treat our people really well. Yes, yes, not everyone is happy - just go read the Mini-Microsoft blog. But, I claim this is a very small minority - compare the number of posts on MM with the number of blogs on blogs.msnd.com and blogs.technet.com. Whats the factor? 1,000 to 1? Higher?

-Foredecker

Feh - I hit submit instead of continue editing. My apologies. I didnt address your comment "in whos universe". In the vast majority of these cases, nobody could quit their job and pursue their moonlighting work. This is especially true of for ad-hoc mobile app development. They only reason most people can do this kind of thing is because they have a day job.

In most moonlighting situations (not just at Microsoft), the moonlighter cannot just quit their day job and pursue their dream.

I think the moonlighting policy at Microsoft is more than fair - its excellent. As I said, it is very likely the most liberal of any high tech company. I know it is much more liberal than Google and Apples polices.

Remember, the 20% time thing at Google has nothing to do with moonlighting - its time spent on projects for Google. Its also worth noting that while Microsoft doesnt have an official delineated 20% time policy, that kind of time is common for many people. But, its different than Google. For example, when my team is in the middle of a Windows development cycle - we focus on that 100%. But, when we are not focused on finishing a coding, integration or stabilization milestone, we very often have time to work on 20% kind of things - often way more than 20%. We call this prototyping. It is quite common for prototype code to productized and used in products. Ive done this several times. So have many others I know. This is true for minor things and some big things. For example Superfetch was heavily prototyped. So where some key cold boot optimizations. We could not have included these things (and many others) in Windows without considerable prototyping time. Note that prototypes are very often the idea of a single person, or a small group of people. Program mangers often come up with great prototyping ideas. Prototyping ideas almost never come from management saying "Hey guys, go prototype this thing" (but that does happen sometimes).

As further illustration, many of the projects on Codeplex.com are from Microsoft people and are great examples of moonlighting and 20% time kinds of things. Heck, Cineplex itself started out (long ago) as an internal side project.

-Foredecker

Freelance is cool and I've done that in the past (liked it too...). But how good is your health insurance? Mine is pretty darn good. Working in a big company has its advantages. Its great for some poeple, not so good for others. Its great that you enjoy freelancing, but it certainly isn't for everybody.