Use company laptop for personal project

Question

I'm thinking about starting a new personal project to work on in my spare time. I was wondering if it is ok to use the company laptop for this?

I'm using visual studio 2008 for development, which is installed on the laptop using a company license. I do have my own license for visual studio 2008, which is installed on my personal desktop. The laptop is just newer, better and faster than my own machine. I just don't want any trouble later on, and certainly not if I make a few bucks on my personal project someday. I don't believe a visual studio solution is bound to a license, but do I have to install my personal license next to the company license on the same laptop?

update

I've just checked my contract and there's nothing in there about code or programs I write. Only about sharing company secrets, working for the competition and registering patents. I think the best way to go is to talk about this with my manager and maybe get something in writing.

Answer 1

It all depends on the employment contract you signed, but: "Everything you develop using company resources is ours." is a pretty common clause. Such a clause would mean that anything developed using your company's laptop and your company's Visual Studio license would be owned by your company which means that if you want ownership of your personal project you would need to develop it with your stuff, on your time.

There's a better discussion of this kind of thing at the end of podcast 60.

So, read your employment agreement: Make sure your personal project does not fall within the bounds of the stuff your employer owns. The last thing you want is your employer to validly assert ownership after you have customers or have submitted large contributions to Ruby on Rails (or something) and you have to rip out everything they have a claim to.

Answer 2

I think you can get into trouble if your employer is in a bad mood :-)

I think Anything on company laptop becomes company property.

Its better to get your own laptop for personal stuff to keep things safe

Answer 3

I would invest $199 in yourself for a copy of visual studio and keep all personal projects off of company hardware. If you believe that you will be building skills that will benefit your current employer you may be able to negotiate with them directly for a personal laptop with the required tools installed.

Answer 4

I could very well be that there is a restriction in your company policies that prohibits you from doing that. If your company is into software development as their main business, you should probably also verify that you developing (and selling) software in your spare time does not interfere with policies around that.

I would bring it up with my manager at some good occasion, just to keep things straight in that relation.

Answer 5

Place yourself in companies/boss position would you like your investment to be used for something other then your profit?

Even the opensource community in many cases dont like that their code/resources be used to make money for someone else. that why you have non commercial licenses. I dont think company would like it much.

Answer 6

I think your main protection here comes from the near-certainty of failure of your project (based on statistics - nothing personal). You'd have to start making serious money (>$100,000 I would guess) before it would be worth coming after you legally.

Answer 7

Unless there is an absolutely crystal clear WRITTEN company policy that states you can use their property and licenses to do whatever you want -DON'T. Upgrade your personal machine and do your personal project development there. If you are using the company machine & license sooner or later you'll copy/link some of the company code to your own at which point it will take Lawyers to untangle the mess and you risk losing your job for misappropriation of company property.