ITitamarst·Sep 20, 2017
GitHub has one, though I can't vouch for details: https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement
In Ask HN: Employer 'Outside work' agreementsgithub
balanced-employee-ip-agreement
OPEN SOURCE2017–2024
github / balanced-employee-ip-agreement
balanced-employee-ip-agreement
GitHub's employee intellectual property agreement, open sourced and reusable
17Distinct people
17Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
2.3KGitHub stars
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What it is
GitHub's employee intellectual property agreement, open sourced and reusable
GitHub
Where it is used
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What people are saying
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This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:01:02 AM UTC.
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Mentions over time
HN mentions by year17 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2017-03-21 12:11:15 UTC to 2024-08-31 08:08:14 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 1 | 4 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 2 | 0 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 2 | 2 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
What Hacker News says
5 sourcesAsk HN: Ability to commit to open source projects I use at work at work
At my current job, I work on applications of machine learning to our data. Sometimes the existing machine learning libraries don't have abilities we need, and often in this cases, the best way to solve the problem is to add modifications to the library itself. However, it is not feasible to maintain private forks because the libraries we use change very fast and to keep them updated it would also be necessary to maintain the fork, which is something that would require additional resources.
So, the best approach for this kind of problems is to create pull requests to the libraries and get them pulled into upstream, so that they can maintain the code and we can use the code maintained by them and have all features we need without private forks.
I would like to just implement the required changes and create PRs when necessary, then use the u
Read the rest
pstream libraries in my work. However, my agreement (expectably) says that all the code that I create at work belongs to the employer, so right now I'm trying to create PRs on weekends to not get into troubles. My boss agrees that it is a problem and said that we can modify my agreement.
Although I understand that I need a lawyer the country where the company is registered to do actual modification of the agreement in a lawful way, I'm curious how is this kind of problems is solved in other companies and what keywords can be used to get more information about this.
I find GitHub's Balanced Employee Intellectual Property Agreement [1] somewhat close to what I want, but I find it to be not exactly clear that it would allow me to commit to open source projects that I use at work because in my understanding each feature that I might add to an open source project and then use in the company's code base can be counted as "(ii) developed for use by the Company".
[1] https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement/blob/master/Balanced_Empl…
Here's the repo, hosting the documents - https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement
In GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resourcesMost corporations I interviewed with have this policy, including Microsoft and some large banks. Otherwise it would be impossible to attract OS developers.
Also the agreement[1] is not completely rosy, it has some strings attached.
For example if you are working on CSS library, Github uses it and contracts you to make some patches, they might claim IP ownership over those patches. That is a mine field for OS project.
I personally would not sign it. It needs extra clause to clarify what projects are excluded.
> The Company owns any IP ("Company IP") that you create, or help create as its employee or contractor, .... related to an existing or prospective Company product or service at the time you developed, invented, or created it
[1]
https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement/blo...
(I am not a lawyer, just a hobby)
In GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resourcesDirect link to GitHub's employee IP agreement : https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement
In GitHub lets staff own IP developed for personal projects using company resources