Like, things you work on during your personal time, using personal resources, belongs to your employer?

That sounds illegal. I don’t know where you live but that does not sound right.

If you want legal advice, consult a lawyer.

I have had similar work contracts.

1. do not use ANY company resources. This could put you at risk of theft.
2. do not do it on company time or make it look like it's on company time. See point 2.
3. you are liable for being fired if you break your work contract in most of the US.
4. whether or not you actually own the IP you created is unfortunately subject to state laws (in the US)

I want you to be successful. Don't hurt your future career prospects

If the project isn't related to what you do at work, you don't do it on company time, and you don't use company hardware, you're most likely fine.

Try and get your employer to offer and agree to GitHub's BEIPA:

https://github.com/github/balanced-employee-ip-agreement

Not being paid for the time? Not using company gear? No problem.

Check your state or country's laws, you might not even need the contract amended. In the state that I live in any contract clause that tries to prevent you from doing any work entirely on your own time with entirely your own materials is explicitly unenforceable.

Plus if it's just a small open source library (assuming your employer is sane) it'd be a waste of money for them to even ask a lawyer to write a letter to you, because why would anyone care.

If you really care about getting it right, you can find a local employment attorney and have them explain your local laws and edit and/or negotiate your contract for you. I did that once, but I felt like it was probably a waste of the $900 I paid. (I mean, it definitely was a waste in that case because that job was a nightmare and it only lasted 2 months, lol.)

"Hobby project" ? But on company time? Then its not a hobby project...

Anything you create outside of work hours is yours to publish under any license you want as long as it doesnt include any code that was produced at work.

One option for some people, not everyone, is to just do your project on your own time and equipment and share it online. Don't tell your boss, but make sure that some random people out there are forking it. Probably the boss never finds out, but even if they do, they won't do anything.

Obviously this is slightly risky, but for many people it is a reasonable move. All depends on the details.

Wow, so even if you code in your spare time, using your own PC, your employer owns ALL your work??

That sounds fucked up. Just find a better employer if they won't change your contract, they should just remove ALL such clauses. What you do in your spare time using personal resources is none of their business.

I wish I could help. The only thing I can say is my work agreement just says that anything I make using resources provided by the company (computers, servers, software, internet access) can be claimed by the company. However, if I use my own computer, software license, my own internet, outside of work hours and not on work premises, then it is mine.

I think the biggest difference might be that although I make software for my employer, my employer is not a software company. So the stuff I make is not sold or intended to ever be sold by the company for profit, but used by the company in their industry to make the work easier and more efficient.

The company I work for is also a part of a larger consortium with promises to share software between all of the organizations and companies to elevate the industry in which we work as a whole.

Hope some of that helps a bit, but I understand if it doesn’t.

Do you need to tie your name to the opensource project? If not, use a pseudonym that your employer can't find or know 🤷 Put it on codeberg or radicle and they won't be able to find the project anyway.

I've generally been up front when starting new jobs that nothing impinges my ability to work on FLOSS software on my own time. Only one company put a restriction in for working on FLOSS software in the same technical space as my $DAYJOB.

I've never had a contract that didn't say that. I always pushed back. Without exception, the response was that hobby projects and open source stuff is fiiine as long as you don't use company machines, time, resources, or compete with their market.

It will depend on where you live.

Many US states have laws that carve out exceptions for work done on your own time and equipment. If the contact doesn't call these out as exceptions somewhere, it's a lazy contact.