Ask HN: Should I use my personal Git account for employer projects?

1 points by discardable_dan ↗ HN

4 comments

[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 37.4 ms ] thread
No, absolutely not. And to be honest, I don't understand why you would even consider it.

Perhaps you could explain your case for doing so, the better to help us understand why you ask.

I also don't understand why the employer would consider it. Think of what would happen if the employee quit, was fired, became incapacitated or died:

- The employer wouldn't have access to the repository that contained their intellectual property.

- The employee would still have access to the employer's intellectual property.

If there was litigation, it would be difficult to explain to a court that some of this stuff belongs to the employer but the rest belongs to the employee. The employer might end up owning all of it.

I generally feel how you do, but looking at commit histories for large projects on Github, this appears to not be the case (Rust, Facebook's Flow, a few Adobe repos, etc.). I can see the appeal, especially for open-source projects, as future employers can see your work there, but I agree with you about the risk and IP concerns.
Use your own judgement.

You know most about the companies and projects you're working on.

When in doubt, you could ask your employer to see what they think.