[FX.php List] Encrypting Solutions?

[Jonathan Schwartz]

Thanks for your thoughts, Bob.

This appears to be the age-old "Who Owns What" discussion we see with 
native FileMaker solutions....with an extra wrinkle of web-based 
delivery thrown in.

In my view, it boils down to whether the client is purchasing a 
product that they would own or a service that they rent.

So far, I have been offering a service.  However, I'm going to be 
sure to spell out these issues in future dealings.

Thanks

Jonathan





At 10:38 AM -0600 2/7/07, Bob Patin wrote:
>Here are my thoughts on this:
>
>My understanding is that, when I develop a project for a client, 
>unless we agree that they will own the subsequent code, then the 
>code ownership stays with me. In fact, I've had several website 
>clients come to me when they discovered that their website pages 
>didn't belong to them; when they decided to move hosting, their 
>hosts wouldn't give them their code. Several times I've had to 
>recreate sites for clients because their previous hosts wouldn't 
>give them their sites--I find that reprehensible and unethical, but 
>to my understanding, these guys were within the letter of the law.
>
>Now having said that, I've never been so hard-nosed about it; if I 
>develop a website or database for someone, unless they fail to pay 
>for services, I give them all of the code upon request; they paid 
>for it, they requested the work, they should have the code. This 
>very thing came up the other day, when one of my clients asked for 
>an unlocked version of his database for safekeeping. I stripped my 
>admin username/password from it, made it openable with full access, 
>and mailed it to him.
>
>To take it a step further, however, if I were to develop a 
>registration system for one client, and wanted to use it for a 
>second, I would have no problem reusing the code I've written, 
>UNLESS I've made an agreement not to do that very thing. That rarely 
>happens for me, except for shopping carts; each site I've done has 
>been a custom job, so all I've ever done is to refer back to old 
>jobs for reminders on how I dealt with certain issues. But my 
>shopping cart gets a little better with each implementation, and I 
>definitely won't rewrite it the next time I need one! :)
>
>I protect my own code simply by hosting it on my own servers, so 
>clients never see the PHP anyway; the simple way to protect the code 
>is to put it on a server which you host (or manage), give them FTP 
>access to one part of the site, but not to a folder containing the 
>PHP code. Simple, easy, and you don't have to have the sticky 
>discussion about why you're keeping their eyes off your creation. :)
>
>My rather long-winded thoughts on the matter... an interesting 
>topic, really...

-- 

Jonathan Schwartz
FileMaker 8 Certified  Developer
Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance
Schwartz & Company
jonathan at eschwartz.com
http://www.eschwartz.com
http://www.exit445.com
415-381-1852