--- In flexcoders@yahoogroups.com, "Doug McCune" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > The company is buying the code that you write. They are not buying your > time. They might pay you based on how long it takes you to write the code, > but in the end all they care about is owning that code. If they pay you > $10,000 to write code, and then you turn around to another company and bid > on a similar project for $500 because you already wrote the code and you > just use the same codebase, they're going to be rightly upset. Anything you > store in your head is yours (lessons learned, techniques used, etc). But > anything you write is theirs. That's just the way this world works. > > I'm surprised at the previous response about not giving ownership of the > code but instead only signing a non-compete. That's a pretty sweet deal if > you can swing it, but I'd be really surprised if you found a large company > that would go for that. For consulting projects I know that we sometimes ask > for the IP of certain portions of code (ie things not specific to the > project or general utility classes), but every time we do, we explicitly ask > for exactly what IP we want to hold onto (and every time it is a huge legal > hurdle). Whatever you do, be completely up-front from the beginning about > what, if any, pieces of what you're writing is not the client's exclusive > IP. > > Also be sure that you have an understanding about any open source code that > you are using in a client's project. Sometimes clients can be very adamant > about not allowing open source code of any kind, since they don't own the > exclusive rights to that. But they often change their mind after you tell > them how much money they will save if you don't have to reinvent what the > open source community has already done. But it's important that you and the > client have the same clear understanding about all this stuff.
Part of the issue is that this might be the first big eLearning project I'm going to be doing wholly in Flex (if we win the bid). The eLearning community as a whole is very interested in Flex as a tool but people are hanging back until someone documents the way to solve the common problems. If I don't have to completely have to rewrite example code before making it available to the community, it will make it much easier for me to do my part in helping to document the process. Thanks; Amy
