In my experience customers are often less concerned with looking at source code themselves than they are with its availability after an ISV, particularly a small one, has ceased to be.
I know of a number of arrangements in which current versions of some product systematically replace deposited older ones under the terms of a formal escrow agreement, from which they are releasable iff an ISV ceases to be viable, with viability variously but not very controversially defined. Such schemes have the merit that they are ancient, much litigated, and thus well understood, at least by the lawyers involved on both sides. There are also bridges in place that make them meaningful/usable in contexts where many other anglo-saxon legal notions are not operational. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
