Remember the old days of sbt when we made a living customizing it? As for cloud software, that is my issue as well. Without power, or internet access, it's worthless. If they go out of business with zero notice, which is what they will do, you are screwed
And if you make a living supporting clients who are dependent on your software which is cloud based, you are screwed from both ends. Not only that, our software companies like Microsoft, oracle, etc., don't seem to realize that as you consolidate our data systems, you actually sell fewer data systems, AND you need fewer database people Ok, forgive me as I've had a beer or two tonight while counting the few pennies that I have left. -----Original Message----- From: ProFox [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Paul McNett Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 6:28 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [NF] Reverse Engineering . Legality Sorry if this takes the discussion off the rails. But in the future... When you select software, put a premium on owning the source code so that you don't get bogged down by these issues. I wonder what companies are going to do when the cloud services they rely on today go belly up in a few years? I've been providing the source to everything I've written since I went independent in 2000, at no extra fee, because I feel it is just the right thing to do. If it comes with a dongle, it better be damned good at what it does and there'd better be recourse written in to the contract to take care of these future situations. I've noticed over the past 15 years that custom software has been trumped by ho-hum vertical-market applications that charge a premium for closed-source basic accounting software with industry-specific add ons. Customers get trapped because they can't move their data forward, they can't make custom enhancements without engaging the vendor (who may charge $10K for one report tweak), they get tired of paying the subscriptions, and they ask me to evaluate making a custom replacement and then I fail to convince them after the sticker shock that long-term, it really is worth it to own the source code. Pay now or pay later... Paul [excessive quoting removed by server] _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://mail.leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profoxtech Searchable Archive: http://leafe.com/archives/search/profox This message: http://leafe.com/archives/byMID/profox/[email protected] ** All postings, unless explicitly stated otherwise, are the opinions of the author, and do not constitute legal or medical advice. This statement is added to the messages for those lawyers who are too stupid to see the obvious.

