Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2026 13:47:19 -0500
From: Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>
To: Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org>
Cc: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>,
	Umair Shahid <umair.shahid@gmail.com>,
	Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com>,
	Cornelia Biacsics <cornelia.biacsics@gmail.com>,
	pgsql-advocacy@lists.postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Non-Compete Challenges for Community Work
Message-ID: <aVgSt4xDjaBvrgG_@momjian.us>
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On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 02:17:10PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> 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.

I think a question is whether it is wise for the community to be
influencing how companies specify compete restrictions in their
employment contracts.  Even if the community were successful in making
changes that are positive for employees, is this an overreach for the
community?

An idea would be to allow companies to voluntarily submit their
non-compete clauses to the community for approval to be listed on some
community fair-employment page.  Would any company do that?

A more fruitful and less heavy-handed option might be to encourage
employees to read and actively evaluate their compete restrictions.
However, many of our contributors become involved with our community
only _after_ being employed, meaning the employment contract has already
been accepted by the employee.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        https://momjian.us
  EDB                                      https://enterprisedb.com

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