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(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 9:54 AM Dave Page <dpage(at)pgadmin(dot)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(at)momjian(dot)us> https://momjian.us
EDB https://enterprisedb.com

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