>
>[pep talk alert]
>
>An acquaintance of mine collaborated on a textbook, when she was a grad
>student and her thesis advisor was the lead author. She finished
>her degree and left the university for industry. She got a good
>offer from a large company in the Ada-related industry. The
>contract she was asked to sign said, essentially, that even her
>moonlighting work belonged to her employer.
>
....


I had the same experience when coming to SAIC.  Their agreement was a bit
unclear on this issue. I refused to sign/hire on till it was modified.  I
spoke with the corp lawyers on the phone for a while about my
consulting/contract software activities and we worked it out no problem.

My understanding is that this type of clause is illegal in california, and
i know saic had a special agreement when i signed on for just those folks
in california which took out any mention of owning things done on personal
time with personal resources.

best jim

  "DOS Computers ... are by far the most popular, with about 70
million machines in use worldwide. Macintosh fans, on the other
hand, may note that cockroaches are far more numerous than
humans, and that numbers alone do not denote a higher life
form." (New York Times, November 26, 1991)