Hi
A few thoughts.
You are in a difficult position and the approach will depend your company
and their ethics.
At the worst you are screwed. They may offer you nothing. At this stage you
may face a choice of legal battle or to walk away.
To win a legal battle you would need to prove ownership of something
copyright and their breech of it. Although they may rewrite in asp the
database structure and user interface may be yours, and you may be able to
prove it. Do you have the app on a third party server - datestamped files
may prove that you created your work before them. However proving the case
is likely to be difficult and expensive and might cost you your job - it
stinks but it may not be worth it.
If they are a little fairer you might try making a business case. It sounds
as if you are up against closed minds, but .
php is secure, unlike IIS which is a basket case where security is
concerned - challenge the IT dept to cite specifics. php runs in conjunction
with the webserver, so this needs qualifying anyway.
MySql is used by NASA, Yahoo and an increasing range of Blue Chip companies
(see www.mysql.com). It does have some limitations, so you need to consider
whether these are relevant to your company.
the business case is..
they have a ready made app which will do the job. If they ask the 3rd party
company to rewrite it will cost a lot, and you may also have M$ licensing
costs to pay. They will also have development time, during which the current
chaos will persist.
You can also try reminding them that you have put many hours into this
project and showing it to them gives them no rights over it at all. If they
are going to build an app that tracks warranty info then let them design it.
But if they take your workflow, table design and screen designs then they
are pirating your work, just like the guy who takes a camcorder into the
latest film and sells the result.
There is another side to the augment, though. If your company are an M$ shop
then supporting other technologies can be problematic - you say yourself
that they are point and click people. If you are the only person who knows
php/MySql then they are vulnerable - if you leave or are off sick they may
have a critical app without support. Rewriting in asp would answer this, but
(I am assuming that you are not working in IT now ) they may not want to
trust an unknown with a business critical app. This is a fairly brutal
assessment, which may have you screaming that you know exactly what you are
doing, but they may see you as a happy amateur.
If it were my company I would see it as a sign of initiative and look to
build on the skills of someone who obviously cares about the state of the
company and has a talent for problem solving. In the real world you can hit
politics, ignorance and greedy bs.
I met a similar situation some years ago, and never reached any real
conclusion, so I would suggest aiming for an amicable solution or leave it.
If you are aiming for IT you might consider looking for a company that will
give you a break, and use the app as part of your CV. In my experience a
finished project speaks louder than letters after your name, particularly
where open source technologies are used.
HTH
Peter
-Original Message-
From: Vincent Jordan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 10 August 2004 00:03
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [PHP-DB] Intellectual property rights
This is a bit off topic however it may be something people here have or
will have the unpleasant opportunity to deal with. The company I work
for has been having a problem tracking our customers warranty
information and have used paper for items sent in for repair. I on my
own time had created a web based application in php that would make both
issues paperless, and in my own opinion getter overall. Once complete I
informed my supervisor of the application and asked if It could be shown
to the vice president for review, with the condition that this is my
application and I own all source and design of the application. My
supervisor said he would need our IT department to look it over before
it went to the VP. At the request of the IT department head I downloaded
the files and sql dump of the database to the company's server. The next
day I wad in the IT office talking with the director of IT and a 3rd
party company about the functions and design of the application. Because
they are all Microsoft weenies and cant admin a server unless they can
point and click their way to a fix they said php would not be an
acceptable language and mysql is not a proper database to run an
application on. I informed them I could rewrite this in asp.net and
place it on a mssql database. The IT director said they will be having
the 3rd party company just take what I have made, convert it to asp and
build off of it.
I approached my supervisor about compensation for the work that was done
since they are using my design. I was told
