Hi Jochen, I don't have specific advice in your situation, but I did used to state in my contract an explicit testing period of all software before final sign-off. I made this explicit that this was where the customer used the apps and found as many of the major errors and problems as possible. My contract then stated that I'd fix anything for free during this period (say 1 month), and after this period everything was chargeable on a T&M basis.
In the open source situation, I'd imagine that even though the code may exist and you've open sourced it, you're not actually charging for the code, more for your time producing it - this would be the angle I'd take in any contract - make them have open source deliverables if you wish, but always tie the contract down to your time and materials. HTH Cheers, -Dan On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 10:48 AM, Jochen Daum<[email protected]> wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm looking for experiences with the following problem: > > we're distributing most of our code under open source licences to clients > and I wonder if anyone has had experiences with the following scenario: > > - Project get developed and delivered under open source licence to client on > clients server > - Later, a round of maintenance is developed and rolled out to the clients > staging server. > - Clients disputes nature of maintenance request and withholds payment > > Now, normally we have a clause in our contract that we withhold the licence > of source code until it is paid. I found a similar clause in Egressive's > contract here: > http://www.phpug.org.nz/index.php/Business_Terms_and_Conditions and our own > contract has pretty much an identical clause: > > "3.1 The Supplier, subject to payment in full of all owing, grants the > Purchaser a non-exclusive licence in respect of all pre-existing material of > the Supplier, which comprises the Agreement Type upon completion of The > Project , ..." > > But after completion of the maintenance we would have distributed open > source code already? > > Do I need to keep code on my own staging server at all times to get around > this? > > Kind Regards, > > Jochen Daum > > Chief Automation Officer > Automatem Ltd > > Phone: 09 630 3425 > Mobile: 021 567 853 > Email: [email protected] > Skype: jochendaum > Website: www.automatem.co.nz > http://twitter.com/automatem > http://www.xing.com/go/invite/3425509.181107 > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ NZ PHP Users Group: http://groups.google.com/group/nzphpug To post, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
