On May 11, 2006, at 10:20 AM, Norman Palardy wrote:
On May 11, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Gary Stair wrote:
If you're a developer under contract to an individual or company
to deliver
a software product, you must have in your contract a provision by
which you
will be paid for your product (50% on order, rest on delivery; all on
delivery; net in 30 day; etc.). This is a binding provision, a legal
requirement to provide you with your fee for the contracted
service. What
surprises me is this: Why don't you put your payment guarantee in
your
product with a time lock?
Because that can simply get you in trouble.
In certain jurisdictions it may in fact be restricted by law.
Having worked on a project where a developer did exactly this DON'T
DO IT.
I know that developer will never be hired by me, and I suspect by
anyone that asked me for a referral.
Why? Didn't they want to pay him? I think there has to be a little
more to that story.
Personally, I've worked with developers who have put in time locks,
ones who haven't and it really doesn't make any difference to me.
They all got paid as per our contract agreement. Which is not to say
there have never been disputes between what was required and what was
delivered. There usually is, but we can also usually work it out to
the satisfaction of both parties.
It's been my experience that contractors rarely fully disclose
exactly what they want. They'll give the programmer the basic idea of
what they want, and the software develops they'll change that model
umpteen times. On the other hand, programmers tend to assume they
know what the customer wants and that leads to problems as well.
I'd like to say that a contract is the best protection for both
parties, but I have some that aren't worth the tree I sacrificed to
print them. They do help, but only to a point. I think my lawyers
made more money than I did in a couple of cases that went bad. But
you carry on because there's not much else to do.
The fact that this is now a hobby for me doesn't make me miss any of
the hassles at all...:-)
Mel
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