Re: Non-Compete Challenges for Community Work

On Mon, Dec  8, 2025 at 04:59:33PM +0000, Dave Page wrote:
> On Mon, 8 Dec 2025 at 16:57, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote:
>     On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 9:54 AM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
>     > I don't think she's wrong - I just think the issue is much smaller than
>     suggested and that there are likely better places to spend time, effort,
>     and money at the moment (such as, I believe, the average age of our
>     contributors being on the rise). More and more jurisdictions seem to be
>     banning non-competes (or regularly ruling against them) for employees, so
>     it seems to me that the problem is slowly going away anyway.
>
>     It's all a bit related, though. Older, more established contributors
>     are more likely to have leverage that they can use to preserve their
>     employment options, or the resources to get through a period of
>     unemployment or under-employment. Younger or less well-established
>     contributors are more likely to get pushed out of the community by an
>     adverse event (such as an employer or ex-employer with a good lawyer).
>
> True, that could definitely be a factor. 

I thought about this for a while.  I think there are several factors:

*  Many people have companies based in jurisdictions that don't enforce
   non-competes.

*  Many people have not read their employment contracts and will not
   find out about non-compete restrictions until they leave their
   employer.

*  Because broad non-compete restrictions are often unenforceable, newer
   non-compete restrictions are more limited, which makes them less of a
   problem.

I don't know if things are improving and we can ignore the issue, or if
there is some action that can be taken.  Ideas are:

*  New employees should read employment contracts and ideally have them
   reviewed by an employment lawyer.  It might be difficult, but not
   being able to find a suitable job for a year is clearly worse.

*  Somehow incentivize companies to limit their non-compete restrictions
   to be more limited, and hopefully not block community involvement.

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

  Do not let urgent matters crowd out time for investment in the future.