Barbara, I did not realize that on the copyrights. Are you sure? I too was under the impression that even when contractors that are hired to design and create, the company that pays retains rights.

Rick, I think that stripping out the methods would go against their rights to the source code, which I don't have a problem with. I think that if things are turned over freely, that could spur more business. Wouldn't you agree?

Trey and Paul, thanks for the guidelines too. From the sounds of it, I did ok signing my first agreement as an independant. I did have my lawyer go over it first too. They discussed upfront that selling the app was in their future plans. But there is nothing to keep me from making a parallel one and releasing it after one year. I insisted on only one year because I just started out on my own.

I also have full rights for my classes, libraries and programming methodologies... and to use them however I wish for other clients or myself.

I too agree that developers sharing code is the best thing. If I had a dollar for everytime someone here or in the newsgroups helped me out... I was just wondering if it's been anyone's experience where they've developed an application for a client, and another developer was brought in to work on a different area, that the other developer might get into a postion where they can work you out of the picture. (*warning* run-on sentence *warning*)


- Brian

>I always give my clients everything they need to have someone else maintain the app, but I don't normally turn over copyright to them. Contrary to what most programmers think, hiring a consultant does not give the client automatic copyright to what you produce. Only employees are under that kind of agreement. (This is US law--I don't know what the laws state in other countries.)
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>I always give my clients everything they need to have someone else maintain the app, but I don't normally turn over copyright to them. Contrary to what most programmers think, hiring a consultant does not give the client automatic copyright to what you produce. Only employees are under that kind of agreement. (This is US law--I don't know what the laws state in other countries.)
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