Stop using your work laptop or phone for personal stuff, because I know you are
I think this is reasonable advice, in some settings. But for many of us, I think it’s just not practical anymore.<p>The lines have become too blurred. I work from home, I have one office and one desk. The computer on the desk was purchased by my company but other stuff wasn’t like my mouse or my iPad. I have work Slack on my phone, which is my personal phone. I know I should be, but I’m just not that careful anymore about what I do where.<p>Granted, I work for a startup. It’s a MBP they had shipped directly from Apple to me. I set it up and configured it myself.<p>The GitHub Balanced Employee IP Agreement acknowledges that this distinction is arbitrary and unhelpful:<p>&gt; In California the main difference made by BEIPA is that IP developed with company equipment or relating to the company&#x27;s business, but in an employee&#x27;s free time and which the employee is not involved in as an employee, is not owned by the company (but the company does get a non-exclusive and unlimited license if the IP relates to the company&#x27;s business). This recognizes that from the employee perspective, segregating one&#x27;s life activities based on ownership of devices at hand or relatedness to an employer&#x27;s potentially vast range of business that an individual employee is not involved with as an employee imposes significant cognitive overhead and often doesn&#x27;t happen in practice, whatever agreements state.<p>- <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;github&#x2F;balanced-employee-ip-agreement" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;github&#x2F;balanced-employee-ip-agreement</a><p>I hope that more employee agreements move this direction so we can stop trying to enforce this distinction.