teehee, you put this so much better than I just did ;)

I'll be frank - but these are my opinions only.

Yes I would employ them with those caveats in place (and yes signoff can be sought from the other depts involved) - but I do see that as the employee saying "I'll work for you, but only until something else comes along" and to be honest that is a negative. If an employee is borderline at the hiring stage, this would not count in their favour for being hired.

We want people to be committed to us and for us to be their career, for as long as they choose to remain with us. The perception this gives is that they can/will leave at any time, and while they are with us they won't put in the effort to make it work anyway because they'll also be focusing on their home projects. Some people can make this work, keep the two separate and still give 100% in the day job. Many can't.

This is the key bit. On hiring them it is very "probably". Taking on someone new is a risk for the employer as much as it is a big step for the employee, especially for small business.

The honesty of being clear that they want to do side projects is appreciated (and important!), but to be frank it is a negative. Sorry.

You may also be right that many employers probably wouldn't...I can only speak from my experience.

They aren't intended to own your soul. I believe (again IANAL) they are intended to start from a position of legal clarity regarding the ownership of software produced by the employee that *may* make its way into company software products.

Obviously the company has to be clear that it does actually own what it thinks it owns (including its software). The clause prevents cases where the employee may write a nifty library at home, and use it at work as well, before subsequently deciding to sell it to someone else and denying the employer any legal right to use it - or even the choice of whether to use the '3rd party' code.

I agree there should be processes and people in place to avoid this happening in the first place (not least of which is a code signoff process) - but the 'default' position, as reflected by the contract, is for legal clarity. A reasonable employer should be able to exclude you from it, on the proviso that there are clear ownership rules around what employees write in their own time (plus no-compete rules).

I would like to reiterate; these clauses are - at least as far as my organisation is concerned - NOT about "we own your soul". Any reasonable employer should be able to come to a mutually agreeable agreement with you if you TALK to them. If they won't....well they probably aren't people you want to work for anyway...

There are legal advice services for employees too. Sometimes they are even available through the employer (provided by a 3rd party so unbiased). We do this through RBS mentor services. (I don't have a link sorry and cba to google for you ;)

hehe, if you feel like that then you will find employers won't care about you...

but fwiw you're wrong. A great many employers care hugely for the welfare, wellbeing, personal development, skills development and happiness of their employess. But you won't find one to work for while you have that attitude.

That may be, but life is a lot simpler for everyone if we can all work by mutual prior agreement.

*all* contracts start in the favour of the people who wrote them. It's a game to make it mutually fair as much as it is to do a decent tax return or haggle for goods at the market. You may not like that it's a game (I don't!), but it is one.

Yes - explain why you don't like this, and what you intend to do in your spare time that you wish to retain ownership of.

These clauses usually come from a desire that employees don't misappropriate company IP and use it to write something competing. Or for a competitor (where the 'who owns what' question becomes murkier).

Any reasonable employer will write you an exclusion, but likely with a no-compete clause, which is fair enough.

IANAL, but I write the above as an employer, running a tech team of 21.

Well actually I do a bit, with everyone on Windows 7 games can start to be dx11 only, which means more pretty.

Mostly I just care about people getting off ie6, and that's happening anyway so who cares what OS people use under the browser.

+1

Some policies are lame yes, and some in charge of them are stupid, but for the most part these 'enemies' are just trying to protect the bigger picture.

Probably the biggest part of this is security. All the things quoted in TFA are a nightmare to ensure are secure, and to support!

For what its worth, as an employer I'm equally put off by candidates who list a massive long list of things they are "expert" in. Nobody can be expert in all those things.

Especially "equivalent" technologies like PHP / Java / VB.net / ASP (yes I know they are different - but nobody can actually be expert in all of them!)

Edit: transferrable skills are important, and understanding the underlying principles is important and leads to it being much easier to learn other platforms/languages. Nevertheless they all have their own idiosyncracies and 'right' ways of doing things.