There is an even harder part to this topic ... things that I have
written have always stayed w/ the client and even when I was not
freelance it was still really 'work for hire' ... *but* you can work
yourself into a bind because some larger media companies (like a
Viacom) will have really strict guidelines and when you spend say 2-3
years working on backend CMS/Flash applications its hard to show your
work when trying for another gig. The real gem other companies seem
to want to see is nice/clean "reusable" OO code, which is just that,
"reused" from your previous experience. Every developer has their
own toolkit filled w/ libraries that do the job they are asked or
they end up on PEAR, Zend, etc and reuse something else. In open
source I find it extremely hard to find things which another company
can rightfully claim as the "owner".
It's probably more of an advantage to ask a company what their
license really is and if they don't have one, go to http://
www.opensource.org/licenses/ and pick one or come up with one
*before* starting so you know where you stand.
Good topic/discussion though.
- Jon
On Jan 11, 2007, at 6:48 PM, 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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