Another anecdote: the vendor I worked for in 1988 bought a product line from another vendor (who is gone, but was colloquially known as "gruel and garbage"). It turned out that the binaries they were shipping and the source code they sent us didn't match--not even close (major missing function: one of the components wouldn't even come up once it was reassembled!). One of our guys spent 18 months working to reconcile them; at that point, we found another sucker^wcompany to unload the product on. Never heard from it (or them) again.
I don't think the vendor we bought it from did this on purpose: I think either they'd lost the ability to build, or had done so many binary patches without matching source patches that things had drifted. On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 8:44 PM, Charles Mills <[email protected]> wrote: > > how does your scenario differ from hiring a new programmer and telling > him > he has to support an application that has been around for years > > Obviously we could invent hypothetical scenarios which were the same or > different. I think it is at least plausible that in your scenario there > would be some documentation and appropriate tools such as compilers, and > perhaps in-house skills. ("Your" scenario application is written in COBOL > and the shop has COBOL programmers; the escrowed application is written in > FORTRAN and there are no FORTRAN skills in-house.) But Yes, best case, your > scenario is similar to identical. But of course there is no preceding > drawn-out court fight and hopefully no crisis (unlike "it blew up and we > finally figured out the vendor is out of business"). > > > they were taken to court by a competitor, and the competitor won the case > > Interesting. The competitor must have been a licensee, with an escrow > agreement, and the vendor must have breached the support agreement. Unusual > to say the least. > > > bankruptcy is typically financially oriented. Contract language for > "real" property ... > > Bankruptcy is bankruptcy. Software is intellectual property. Bankruptcy > basically trumps contracts. If I were a creditor of a bankrupt software > company I would be in court arguing that the source code should be sold to > the highest bidder to help satisfy the software company's debts to me and > others, not given away due to an executory agreement. What would the court > say? We would be paying lawyers to find out, wouldn't we? (Meanwhile, the > poor customer's critical processing is still waiting on a bug fix.) > > Escrow may work in certain circumstances. I think it is problematic to the > point of having little benefit. Your mileage may vary. > > Charles > > -----Original Message----- > From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On > Behalf Of Mitch > Sent: Thursday, May 08, 2014 5:12 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: Vendor Source Code > > Charles, > > My first question is this: how does your scenario differ from hiring a > new > programmer and telling him he has to support an application that has been > around for years, but none of the previous developers or support staff are > with the company any longer? However, your point about what happens if and > when you do have to get access to the code from a no longer existent > vendor. > This is true, but also I would be surprised if any company would put > something into a production environment without first testing it, whether > it > is if the vendor product "blows up" or something changes in the client's > environment. > > I represented a vendor (who shall remain unnamed) and a situation happened > where they had their product code in escrow, they were taken to court by a > competitor, and the competitor won the case. The vendor then had to make > their current version of their product available as per contract. A end > user organization should ensure that any escrowed source is always the > latest version as per contract stipulations. > > Lastly, bankruptcy is typically financially oriented. Contract language > for > "real" property is handled differently than financial obligations. Again, > I, unfortunately, learned this first hand. BTW, IMHO, any vendor that is > worth their salt will keep their various versions held in escrow up to > date. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- zMan -- "I've got a mainframe and I'm not afraid to use it" ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
