On Thu, Jan 1, 2026, 2:17 AM Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us> wrote:
On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 04:59:33PM +0000, Dave Page wrote: > On Mon, 8 Dec 2025 at 16:57, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 9:54 AM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote: > > I don't think she's wrong - I just think the issue is much smaller than > suggested and that there are likely better places to spend time, effort, > and money at the moment (such as, I believe, the average age of our > contributors being on the rise). More and more jurisdictions seem to be > banning non-competes (or regularly ruling against them) for employees, so > it seems to me that the problem is slowly going away anyway. > > It's all a bit related, though. Older, more established contributors > are more likely to have leverage that they can use to preserve their > employment options, or the resources to get through a period of > unemployment or under-employment. Younger or less well-established > contributors are more likely to get pushed out of the community by an > adverse event (such as an employer or ex-employer with a good lawyer). > > True, that could definitely be a factor.
I thought about this for a while. I think there are several factors:
* Many people have companies based in jurisdictions that don't enforce non-competes.
* Many people have not read their employment contracts and will not find out about non-compete restrictions until they leave their employer.
* Because broad non-compete restrictions are often unenforceable, newer non-compete restrictions are more limited, which makes them less of a problem.
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.
