>>I'm about to extablish a consulting agreement for a 6 month full time contract witha client with a potential for at least one 6-mo extension. Where can I find a decent generic contract?
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>>Matt
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>I strongly suggest that you consult an attorney with experience in software law. I'll give you one reason why....copyrights. As a contractor you MAY own the copyright to anything you write for your client EVEN IF THE CONTRACT STATES OTHERWISE. A regular copyright attorney is not a good choice here since copyright laws for software are different from those for books, music, etc. You should be able to get the attorney to draw up a generic contract for you for a couple of hundred dollars.
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>Craig

Craig,

I seem to recall that this issue became a really long thread last summer. Lot's of people having lots of opinions. I don't have, nor do I plan to have, in the immediate future, any plans to spend money on marketing, which makes the copyright issue a moot point for me. I'm developing custom apps which although may be able to be used by various companies, really wouldn't have enough market strength for me to worry about copyrights.

I may add a line in the contract about generic function code being excluded (like my email.prg) but as far as I'm concerned, I'll never need this software again unless I stay with this company permanently (which is a possibility). In either case, I'm not worried about copyrights. I'm a solution provider, I'm not a software developer.

I'd be curious to hear other's opinions, but I believe that this may become a long thread with little consensus once the 'end' is reached.

Matt