My contract states explicitly and without question that the code is
solely owned by Secure Data Software, who are free to do with it
whatever they want. This may sound extreme or unreasonable, but it is
the only way to move forward as a custom shop, otherwise you end up in
the hall of mirrors trying to figure what line of code belongs to whom
and why it was written and when and what if you copy-n-pasted it and
what if its just a coincidence and what if every other line spells out
the name of the third Holy Roman emperor? So, to keep it simple, I can
give customer X anything he needs, because everything I did for customer
X-1, and X-2, and X-3, back to customer zero, belongs to SDS.
The same contract also states that the customer enjoys a perpetual
license to use the software. This is all they really want. They can
use it forever with no further obligation, this way they are not trapped
or vulnerable.
Going off into other areas, while Andromeda is a GPL'd product, a
commercial license is required if SDS is going to provide support and code.
There are many ways you can do it.
Dell Sala wrote:
Hi all,
I have a client that has run into a conflict with a previous developer
over the ownership of some php code, and it's brought up some pretty
big questions for me.
When I am under contract to develop some custom code for a client, who
owns the code after it is finished? I expect the quick answer to be
"It Depends".
In the particular case I mentioned, my understanding is that there was
no prior discussion of code ownership, or even a contract -- only a
brief, home-made copyright statement embedded in the source code after
it was completed. Can something like that really determine ownership
in a legal context?
My own position on this as a freelance developer (never really
discussed or documented in contracts), has been that any code I write,
or open source code that I install for a client belongs to the client
-- as long as I can reuse the same code that I write for other
projects and clients. Thats a pretty loose position, but my
relationship with clients has always been good and I haven't run into
any trouble so far. Am I, or my clients as risk here somehow?
What do the rest of you do? I'd be particularly interested in hearing
from other freelance developers. Any good resources out there for
learning about code ownership and licensing issues?
-- Dell
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fn:Kenneth Downs
n:Downs;Kenneth
adr;dom:;;347 Main Street;East Setauket;NY;11733
email;internet:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
tel;work:631-689-7200
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