Ahoy!
I'm sitting here, pondering on a problem that has just occurred to me. Having a short though intensive period of experience with PHP, I'm now in the process of being "swallowed" up by a group of web designers. That is, I've been offered a job opportunity.
Now, how do you charge your services? Do you do it on a time-slot basis (seems kind of awkard to me since much PHP code can be reused a l o t!) or do you do it on the basis of the size of projects and whether new code has to be developed etc etc?
What's the matter with re-using the code and charging the same rate for it? You're a business, and you're supposed to make money. I currently charge by the hour, but I'm trying whereever possible to move away from hourly rates into fixed price services. Why?
a) The client knows exactly what to expect in terms of price and result
b) I don't spend half my days quoting every last detail of a job
c) I have the opportunity to re-use code over and over, making a PROFIT, rather than braking even all the time
Another question is: Since they are the owners of the web servers (also in control of the web admins.), they effectively control the PHP code that I develop. How do I make sure that I'm not just used once for a project and thereafter thrown on the trashbin, i.e. they take the code and keep using it for many other projects without my knowledge. As far as I'm concerned, a proper pay should be for each project that my PHP code goes into. Or do you not agree? Very thankful for your opinions here!
Copyright is the simple answer, but it needs to be a) observed by your clients b) enforced by you when not observed by clients
You can always compile your scripts, and supply them with compiled (encoded) products, rather than source scripts. This of course would depend on the copyright agreement you have with your clients.
And what is a proper pay?
There's no decent answer to that -- there's soooooo many factors to take into consideration, like the market, the economic environment, your skills, your productivity, your client's budget, etc etc. The only accurate answer is "twice as much as half".
I would really like to get some tips on how to specify a partnership with these web designers. I know about code obfuscators... but let's get real. They don't come close to hiding code (from these web designers and web admins.) as compiled software is hidden from end users.
Compiling with Zend encoder or similar, as stated above.
Perhaps someone here remembers my last post - which was about security of PHP code (from viewing and unauthorized usage). Now, I'm kind of put against the wall here. I want to get to it, i.e. get to the work. But after some bad experiences *grunt*, I'm not willing to get literally squished by blood sucking vampires (*clearing my throat*) later on.
You obviously aren't confident working with these people, so consider NOT working for them.
Justin French
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