Ask HN: Side project might be useful for my team at work – should I share it?
Without delving too much into details, I'm working on a developer tool that might be very useful to my team at work. How should I go about sharing it without losing my IP on it?
- I am working on it in my own free time
- I am a contractor, not an employee. Company is based in Europe. I work remotely
- It's not directly related to the company's business, it just solves a problem in the technical stack that my company uses
- I am planning on releasing it as a product in future and monetizing it
- It might save 20-30% of development time for our team at my job
Now I've heard enough horror stories about employees losing IP of their side project. Should I share (a very unpolished, early version of) my product with my team, and how should I approach it to retain all rights over my IP?
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Are _any_ of the following true?
1. You worked on this in company time? (i.e. Github history shows you did)
2. Your company asked someone (inc you or your team) to make this? (i.e. you got inspiration directly from it)
3. You worked on this on company equipment? (i.e. work provided your primary machine and you used the tools the company provided in your spare time to build this)
If _any_ of those is true, then your employer likely has a claim over the IP.
If _none_ of this is true, then you should be fine but it also depends on your employer, the culture there, and whether this is perceived as being valuable to them... YMMV.
If you’re planning on commercializing this, absolutely do not expose your employer to it.
You should probably check what your contract says