Обсуждение: Non-Compete Challenges for Community Work

Are you talking about people already in the community who feel they might have 
to stop working here due to a non-compete clause, or those not year yet who 
would feel they can't start because of them?

I feel that working on Postgres itself or its tools would be a very distinct 
industry niche that could only conceivably be considered similar work to someone 
working on some proprietary database engine like Oracle or MS SQL Server etc, 
and most employment anyone is likely to have would be in the application space 
or other spaces which are very clearly separate and arms-length that there 
should be no risk of a non-compete clause overlapping that isn't stupidly 
non-enforceable like can't work in IT at all.

I feel your expressed ideas have some merit, but that I feel that they should 
all be strictly non-financial, and that the idea of this dedicated community 
fund for this specific scenario seems unfair to everyone else who needs paid work.

Darren Duncan

On 2025-12-02 8:27 a.m., Cornelia Biacsics wrote:
> Dear Community,
> 
> I would like to raise a general challenge that could affect contributors in the 
> PostgreSQL ecosystem (in the future).
> 
> Broad non-compete clauses in employment contracts — regardless of whether they 
> would hold up in court — may temporarily prevent people from continuing their 
> work in the database industry.
> 
> This could potentially interrupt ongoing community contributions and reduce 
> continuity.
> 
> Before exploring either path further, I would like to understand whether there 
> is actual demand or interest in addressing this challenge collectively.
> 
>  1. Do you see this as an issue the PostgreSQL community should discuss?
>  2. Would either of these options be valuable for community health and
>     sustainability?
>  3. Is there support for forming a small working group to evaluate feasibility
>     and governance?
> 
> If there is interest, I see two possible directions:
> 
> 
>       *1. Community Support & Retention Fund*
> 
> A fund to offer temporary financial support or non-commercial project work for 
> contributors who may be restricted from working within the PostgreSQL ecosystem 
> due to broad non-compete clauses.
> During such a period, these contributors would work exclusively for the 
> community, focusing on non-commercial tasks aligned with PostgreSQL’s values and 
> needs.
> 
> 
>       *2. Community Recognition for PostgreSQL Community-Friendly Companies*
> 
> Extending the existing community recognition model (used for meetups and 
> conferences) to organizations. Companies could voluntarily follow community- 
> aligned guidelines (based on general & expanded CoC guidelines)— including 
> avoiding restrictive industry-wide non-compete clauses — and be recognized as 
> community-friendly employers within the ecosystem.
> 
> I look forward to your thoughts and perspectives — publicly or privately — and 
> appreciate your openness in discussing what can be a sensitive but important topic.
> 
> Thanks a lot and best wishes
> 
> Cornelia Biacsics
> 

On 12/2/25 08:27, Cornelia Biacsics wrote:
> Dear Community,
> 

> During such a period, these contributors would work exclusively for the 
> community, focusing on non-commercial tasks aligned with PostgreSQL’s 
> values and needs.

 From what I gather 'community' is this:

https://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/

Everything above that is third party. If that is the case any work done 
for the 'community' would be non-commercial work by default, done under 
this:

https://www.postgresql.org/about/licence/

> 
> Thanks a lot and best wishes
> 
> Cornelia Biacsics
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On 12/2/25 09:41, Darren Duncan wrote:

> I feel your expressed ideas have some merit, but that I feel that they 
> should all be strictly non-financial, and that the idea of this 
> dedicated community fund for this specific scenario seems unfair to 
> everyone else who needs paid work.

+1

> 
> Darren Duncan



-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com

On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 8:24 AM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
> Agreed - and companies like pgEdge and EDB have policies and often employment contracts that specifically encourage
contributions.

I'm kind of surprised by the direction of this conversation, because
I'm aware of some problematic cases. Even if none of us were, that
wouldn't mean that there are no problems. People are going to be
understandably reluctant to discuss their terms of employment
publicly.

I guess I'm in the minority here, but I feel like Cornelia's proposals
are perfectly reasonable ideas. There are, of course, lots of
practical problems. For instance, if we wished to recognize companies
that do the right thing around non-competes, we'd have to define what
that is, and there is no guarantee that every company treats every
employee the same way, and companies might be reluctant to make
blanket promises. And, if we wished to have a foundation to employ
PostgreSQL contributors, someone would need to provide the money, and
there would inevitably be some challenges around how that money got
allocated and who got to make decisions about it.

But if I had a billion dollars, would I use some of it to set up a
PostgreSQL foundation and hand out grants for community work? Heck
yeah I would. I think that'd be awesome. I just don't have a billion
dollars.

--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

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
placesto spend time, effort, and money at the moment (such as, I believe, the average age of our contributors being on
therise). More and more jurisdictions seem to be banning non-competes (or regularly ruling against them) for employees,
soit 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).

--
Robert Haas
EDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com

> On 9 Dec 2025, at 14:14, Willy-Bas Loos <willybas@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Sorry for asking a stupid question, but could someone please re-post the original proposal?
> For me it starts with Adrian Klaver replying "From what I gather 'community' is this" (and more) on Dec 2, 2025.

The online archives can always be referred to as all emails are archived there.

https://www.postgresql.org/list/pgsql-advocacy/2025-12/

This particular thread can be found at:

https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/CAN_SPgpnvhZzUjXJ_u4h7bYT_9%3DN8RO1AytA7_T--4pScpeU_g%40mail.gmail.com

--
Daniel Gustafsson

Hi,

On 2025-12-08 09:20:18 -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 8:24 AM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
> > Agreed - and companies like pgEdge and EDB have policies and often employment contracts that specifically encourage
contributions.
> 
> I'm kind of surprised by the direction of this conversation, because
> I'm aware of some problematic cases.

Seconded. I'm also aware of quite a few cases. I'm rather surprised to hear so
many others not having seen problems - IME it's a rather substantial portion
of job changes that run into problems around non-competes.

Sure, in most cases the non-competes are not in the end not going to be
legally enforceable. But it's going to cost a lot of lawyer time to go to that
point, and most are going to do their best to stay far away from the legal
system.

Greetings,

Andres Freund

On 12/9/25 08:42, Andres Freund wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On 2025-12-08 09:20:18 -0500, Robert Haas wrote:
>> On Mon, Dec 8, 2025 at 8:24 AM Dave Page <dpage@pgadmin.org> wrote:
>>> Agreed - and companies like pgEdge and EDB have policies and often employment contracts that specifically encourage
contributions.
>>
>> I'm kind of surprised by the direction of this conversation, because
>> I'm aware of some problematic cases.
> 
> Seconded. I'm also aware of quite a few cases. I'm rather surprised to hear so
> many others not having seen problems - IME it's a rather substantial portion
> of job changes that run into problems around non-competes.
> 
> Sure, in most cases the non-competes are not in the end not going to be
> legally enforceable. But it's going to cost a lot of lawyer time to go to that
> point, and most are going to do their best to stay far away from the legal
> system.

It seems to me since this is a legal issue it merits a legal response. 
My thought is the fund suggested in the original post go to sponsoring 
legal representation from one of the FOSS law firms in aid of 
challenging the non-competes. Making companies cough up money to defend 
what are probably non-legal actions would get their attention. Once it 
becomes plain there is a cost associated with the clauses I suspect 
their use would diminish. Yes, I realize we are getting into the realm 
of international law and it could get complicated.

> 
> Greetings,
> 
> Andres Freund
> 
> 


-- 
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com