[rrouse]

I've always hated the notion of "We pay you some small amount to own you 24/7."

In my opinion, what I do outside of work hours is mine and mine alone. I always make sure I state that explicitly and modify any contract that tries to do otherwise.

[famousactress]

It's definitely icky. I don't sign those things anymore, but then I don't get paid enough to. I do wonder how these negotiations go though for someone at Carmack's level. These contracts aren't compulsory... Carmack apparently understood that enough to work out an exclusion for Armadillo... and certainly there's a price at which I'd happily sign one of those agreements (though I can't imagine anyone paying it), so it's not clear to me yet which side of this I'd fall on, despite really despising those kinds of employment contracts.

[georgemcbay]

I don't know anything specific about the details of any of Carmack's contracts; but certainly when signing them you have a lot more leverage to carve out exclusions when some other company actively wants to buy "you" and your company than you do later when it is clear to everyone that you're on the way out the door.

Armadillo was started way before ZeniMax acquired id (thus easy to foresee needing a documented exclusion), whereas Oculus VR wasn't even a thing until a few years after that was a done deal.

[filmgirlcw]

Right, the way I would read the Armadillo thing isn't as "Carmack knew he needed a documented exclusion clause to work on other stuff," but as "ZeniMax acquired id NOT Armadillo and that made a document setting the exclusion necessary.

Obviously, without seeing Carmack's contract, it's impossible to ascertain if he did agree that all work, in our out of the office, including ideas, belonged to ZeniMax.

And even then, the definition of work product could be argued in all kinds of ways. Is it only committed code, does it also include research and sketches. How does it extend to what is shared with others, etc.

Carmack has a good lawyer, I'm sure. Hopefully that lawyer also looked over his ZeniMax contract.

[famousactress]

It goes without saying that you have more leverage before signing a contract than afterward, and the contract is obviously open ended... I was just pointing out that it's a risk of the unknown that would be weighed against compensation by both parties so it's not totally clear to me that Zeni is out of line yet.

[georgemcbay]

I would assume Carmack did the usual programmer thing and just expected them to not be huge unreasonable assholes about future situations after his ZeniMax employment had ended.

This is a common mistake programmers make when dealing with lawyers and other corporate types who stand to gain money from being huge unreasonable assholes.

[malandrew]

Could Carmack leave Oculus and have Oculus hire Armadillo as a contractor paid in a form of cash and equity/options?

[yoshokatana]

I nearly turned down my current job because they were using a default contract that had clauses like that in it. It also said that they have control over everything on my computer, despite the fact that the laptop I bring in for work is my own personal laptop.

I ended up spending about an hour with their lawyer reviewing and amending the contract until those kinds of clauses were completely taken out. Lucky the lawyer was very amenable to the changes.

Always read the fine print, and don't sign anything if you're at all uncomfortable with it.

[Jare]

(IANAL etc)

I don't think "work hours" is really an applicable concept for someone in Carmack's position - he's not a 9-to-5 worker, his life and work are surely much more entangled.

It's hard to deny that Carmack's involvement in VR was linked to his position at id (Zenimax by extension) in a way that Armadillo for example was not; if nothing else, he did talk (show?) Rift versions of id properties. However, his image, popularity, visibility and even open promotion of Oculus are not really at issue here, at most they would have been grounds for disciplinary action from Zenimax at the time.

It's up to Zenimax to prove exactly what sort of tangible, protected IP and 'know-how' was transferred to Oculus. During 2012 he tweeted often about his research on lag, and I imagine his work was more extensive than what he publicly disclosed. If there's any link between that work and any properties of Zenimax, say a computer, email address, code or assets owned by Zenimax and used in any way to do VR-related work that Oculus took advantage of (even if it's not in use today), then there will be blood, pain and tears.

[rasz_pl]

Carmack also tweeted and spoke often about Zenimax refusal to touch VR and support Occulus. He basically said Doom 3 BFG Edition VR support was done by him OFF the clock and he would have to buy HIMSELF from his own money all the copies that went with Occulus KS fulfilment.

Basically Zenimax didnt want to do anything with VR while he was there, but now those slimy lawyer cockroaches want piece of the action.