[paul_milovanov]

Come on, people. Not "we are working on", but "if I were to start working".

[jjnoakes]

Please don't advocate for making willfully misleading statements to one's employer which might have legal repercussions (IANAL, etc).

[ghurtado]

1. There's nothing willfully misleading about asking a hypothetical question

2. You do not have an "absolute transparency" duty to your employer about all aspects of your personal life. Please don't behave as if you do.

[jjnoakes]

> There's nothing willfully misleading about asking a hypothetical question

Except the person I replied to wasn't advocating for "asking hypothetical questions", they were advocating for "it doesn't matter if you started a side project or not, when you ask your employer about how to move forward, make all efforts to imply or directly say that you haven't started a side project yet". That's not right.

> You do not have an "absolute transparency" duty to your employer

I agree, but I think there's a huge spectrum between "no absolute transparency" and "lying to my employer" and I don't think it's right (and it's probably not legal in the context we're discussing, but IANAL) to tell one's employer one hasn't started a side project when one has.

> Please don't behave as if you do.

Please explain how "don't lie to your employer about potentially legally important matters" is the same as "behaving like you have an absolute transparency duty to your employer".

[ghurtado]

You're using quotes to "quote" people saying things they never said, so this is not really a productive conversation any more.

[jjnoakes]

I'm not using quotes to quote anyone. I'm paraphrasing what was said more clearly so you could understand my point better.

The quotes are there to separate the paraphrased words being discussed from the words discussing them.

[roflchoppa]

yeah dude my mom programmed all that stuff in her spare time. <:0

[nitrogen]

One's employer is unlikely to be so forthright with their future plans. It should not be misleading to reveal only the minimum information necessary to a potentially hostile actor (speaking culturally, not legally).

[jjnoakes]

> It should not be misleading to reveal only the minimum information necessary to a potentially hostile actor

I have no problem with this. But I see a big difference between asking one's employer "If I was already working on a project in my free time and wanted to take it further, what would I do?" and "I haven't started working on anything yet, but if I wanted to, what do I do?", when one has indeed started something already.