On Nov 17, 2007 5:04 AM, Bernardo Stanfield <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have a client who wants to develop his own system that will interface with > the one that I have provided and for which I have a maintenance contract. He > tells me that he will need to write to the tables that belong to my system > and has asked me if thats OK. I would be delighted to know that a system I wrote is still useful to the client. > I feel that if he starts to modify the contents and/or structure of 'my' > tables, I can no longer be responsible for the integrity of the data in my > system. That's true and you need to get the client to agree to that. Depending on your relationship with the client, it might be wise to do this in print and signatures. > I need to give him my answer and wonder if anyone has experience to share on > this subject. I'm thinking that I will not allow this and will suggest that > if he wants, I can give him a quote on the source files for my system and he > can take over the maintenance. Any ideas or suggestions will be very welcome. I think making it easy to access _his_ data within _your_ system makes the system more valuable. This may be a business opportunity for you to make your system more valuable to him and perhaps to any other customers you've given this system to. Rather than allowing direct access to the tables, you may want to consider offering a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) in the form of a Software Development Kit (SDK). Using this package, the client can access the data and perhaps perform updates to the data in a way that's consistent with your data model. In addition, you could optionally offer some auditing (recording) of the changes done, so you both could understand when an update caused either system to behave in an unexpected manner. Certainly you have the option of selling the rights to the source code of your system to him, if you'd rather have your money now rather than an ongoing relationship with the client, recurring revenue. There's a lot to consider. You need to balance the risks of leaving money on the table with the consequences of having your data changed externally. -- Ted Roche Ted Roche & Associates, LLC http://www.tedroche.com _______________________________________________ Post Messages to: [email protected] Subscription Maintenance: http://leafe.com/mailman/listinfo/profox OT-free version of this list: http://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.
