Event though it's not portable, it will likely have far greater usage than Mojo just by being heavely promoted by Nvidia, integrated in dev tools and working alongside existing CUDA code.

Tile IR was more likely a response to the threat of Triton rather than Mojo, at least from the pov of how easy is to write a decently performing LLM kernel.

There was an attempt to make a Chrome OS competitor that had the entire UI rewritten in UWP, and when that got canceled it seems MS saved the new start menu + taskbar and bolted it on top of Win10, and for Explorer and other apps made this UWP+Win32 abomination. Actually when you profile Explorer you can also see DirectUI running, which is I believe another UI framework from the Office org. this time (maybe it's related to OneDrive).

Btw, apps written in C# using WPF can be surprisingly fast, so it's not really a problem of .NET managed vs. native apps. For ex. may favorite Git GUI (git-fork.com) is C#/WPF.

Since the MIT license allows anyone to do whatever they want with the project, including commercial use and creating derivatives, I'm tempted now to create a startup based on the project - basically fork it and work in private on it, extending and improving it a lot (make it worth buying it compared to OSS version), then rebrand and launch it as a subscription app.

The moonlighting policy is fairly permissive, but also somewhat vague. Both my contract and current HR guidance state that any invention is mine if done outside work hours, not using their hardware AND doesn't compete with the company and harms it's business interests - the vague part, especially with a company that has it's fingers in dozens of different software. It's not needed to inform manager or HR about moonlighting, just "use your judgement if it fits the policy". WA state.

There are several concerns I have and I'm also curious if others have dealt with a similar situation and have some advice:

1) my fear is that even if I'm following the moonlighting policies from now on, they could later still claim ownership of my work based on the pre-OSS work. If someone else outside the company would fork the OSS repo there should be no problems given the MIT license. My hope was that starting now from a fork creates a clean slate for me, since the previous work was done in part during work hours on their PCs. Open-sourcing through my employer was the only way not to lose it completely in case I switch companies (and remain abandoned, no one cares enough about it).

2) the company doesn't have a stand-alone product it sells similar to my app, but it does have a module part of a much larger product. That product is far from being the money-maker for the company (it's seen as a cost center). People are certainly not buying the whole product because of that module, it's a nice thing to have. There are several other companies that do sell stand-alone apps similar to mine though, there is a market for it. I assume that module is enough to argue that my app is a direct competitor if one really wants to though.

Given this, feels like safest would be to quit my job before even starting to work on this, but of course I'd like to avoid that, with the startup maybe not working out - concern 1 could also mean this wouldn't actually help. Switching first to another company is another option, but seems others have even worse or no moonlighting and again concern 1). Last option, work on it while employed and hope I won't get sued. Maybe quit around the time I'm close to be done with a v1 and start marketing to reduce risk a bit.

As for the company itself, I'm not seeking funding and don't see it getting to some multi-million/y business, at best enough to make a full-time job out of it. Maybe that's enough to not make it worth suing. I will consult with an attorney too, wanted to check first with other entrepreneurs in case it's completely hopeless.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41915101

Points: 2

# Comments: 1

The app itself is similar to a module of a much larger product the company sells, but that product is far from being a money-maker for the company (may just break even). People are certainly not buying the whole product because of that module, it's a nice thing to have. There are several other companies that do sell stand-alone apps similar to mine though, there is a market for it.

The other concern was whether starting now the work based on the MIT open-sourced version of my app creates a clean slate for me, since the previous work was done in part during work hours on their PCs. Open-sourcing the app through my employer was the only way not to lose it completely in case I switch companies, and have a chance to try a startup based on it.

Some advice I've got was that forking the OSS version should be done by a friend (not in the company) and I should work on it in the background and officially join later, after I quit - that also feels sketchy.

Since the MIT license allows anyone to do whatever they want with the project, including commercial use and creating derivatives, I'm tempted now to create a startup based on the project - basically fork it and work in private on it, extending and improving it a lot (make it worth buying it compared to OSS version), then rebrand and launch it as a subscription app.

This future work would not touch any company-owned hardware and resources, unlike the work that got open-sourced (that was the reason it's now on the company's GitHub account and not mine, was happy enough open-sourcing went smoothly through approvals).

The moonlighting policy is fairly permissive, but also somewhat vague especially about what a competing product is (whole product or a small module in a larger product is enough). The other restrictions are the usual, don't use company hardware, time, connections to do the work.

There are several concerns I have and I'm also curious if others have dealt with a similar situation and have some advice:

- my fear is that even if I'm following the moonlighting policies from now on, they could later still claim ownership of my work based on the pre-OSS work. If someone else outside the company would fork the OSS repo there should be no problems given the MIT license, it's what these companies are doing all the time by wrapping Postgres and the like... - the company doesn't have a stand-alone product it sells similar to my app, but there is one small module similar to it part of a huge app. I assume that is enough to argue that my app is a competitor if one wants to.

Given this, feels like safest would be to quit my job before even starting to work on this, but of course I'd like to avoid that, with the startup maybe not working out. Switching to another company is another option, but seems others have even worse or no moonlighting. Last option, work on it while employed and hope I won't get sued. Maybe quit around the time I'm close to be done with a v1 and start marketing to reduce risk a bit.

As for the company itself, I'm not seeking funding and don't see it getting to some multi-million/y business, at best enough to make a full-time job out of it. Maybe that's enough to not make it worth suing.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41906697

Points: 3

# Comments: 3

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25117048

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23169715

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20647928

Points: 1

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20558577

Points: 2

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20527061

Points: 3

# Comments: 0

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15875886

Points: 2

# Comments: 0