Thus, any similar work you do on your own time cannot be done without your brain using some of what is in your head, which you learned/figured out on company time.
Aside from information that is considered confidential by my employer (in which case it falls under the NDA I signed), what's in my head belongs to me. Yes: me. Just as my employer is able to use knowledge and experience that I've gained from working for previous employers (and on open source projects in my spare time), I must be able to use the knowledge and experience I've gained at my current employer in future (or even current, as long as it's not the same) work.
A huge part of the reason I'm so good at the job I do now is because of the 5 years I spent working on Xfce. If my employer gets to leverage that, then I get to leverage what I've learned at my current job. It's mine, plain and simple.
That may not be exactly what the law says -- it's hard to read it and specifically say what's allowed and what isn't without a lawyer, and even then I'm sure they disagree -- but anything less is knowledge-servitude.
Now, as to the "similar" bit: I think a large company like Google could easily claim that the vast majority of personal projects done by its employees is "similar" enough to something someone somewhere in the company is working on that they are entitled to ownership under current law and policy. Even if it's not related to the work that the employee actually does for the company. And that's not cool.
Yes, I think it's cool that Google is so willing to allow its employees to open source so much Google-owned code. But that's not enough. Look at it the other way: if it's "no big deal" for the employee to assign copyright to Google because it's released under a liberal open source license like BSD, then why isn't it "no big deal" to allow the employee to retain copyright? Aside from prestige, what does Google gain from owning copyright on BSD-licensed code? As a person who writes software, a part of my resume is the body of open source code listed under my copyright. Sure, you can look at commit logs to find out who wrote the code, but it's much less impressive to be a contributor listed under your employer's umbrella.
Aside from information that is considered confidential by my employer (in which case it falls under the NDA I signed), what's in my head belongs to me. Yes: me. Just as my employer is able to use knowledge and experience that I've gained from working for previous employers (and on open source projects in my spare time), I must be able to use the knowledge and experience I've gained at my current employer in future (or even current, as long as it's not the same) work.
A huge part of the reason I'm so good at the job I do now is because of the 5 years I spent working on Xfce. If my employer gets to leverage that, then I get to leverage what I've learned at my current job. It's mine, plain and simple.
That may not be exactly what the law says -- it's hard to read it and specifically say what's allowed and what isn't without a lawyer, and even then I'm sure they disagree -- but anything less is knowledge-servitude.
Now, as to the "similar" bit: I think a large company like Google could easily claim that the vast majority of personal projects done by its employees is "similar" enough to something someone somewhere in the company is working on that they are entitled to ownership under current law and policy. Even if it's not related to the work that the employee actually does for the company. And that's not cool.
Yes, I think it's cool that Google is so willing to allow its employees to open source so much Google-owned code. But that's not enough. Look at it the other way: if it's "no big deal" for the employee to assign copyright to Google because it's released under a liberal open source license like BSD, then why isn't it "no big deal" to allow the employee to retain copyright? Aside from prestige, what does Google gain from owning copyright on BSD-licensed code? As a person who writes software, a part of my resume is the body of open source code listed under my copyright. Sure, you can look at commit logs to find out who wrote the code, but it's much less impressive to be a contributor listed under your employer's umbrella.