This is so much more complicated then even my earlier post suggests. Someone above alluded to the fact that if you use other copywriten code, albeit graphics or modules you have purchased you have a for use license. Let's assume that license from those third parties is valid and legal for the sake of argument. Unless the client purchases that software legally from the company Julie is no advocating that I can use her copy without her permission or the permission of her employer.

I agree that this issue ought to be spelled out contractually and the client given the right to purchase it. But having been in these wars I've offered the software for a fee and most clients take the stand that they've payed for it as part of the job, when they have in fact paid for a working system.

The real solution is to have the client pay for the real development time of that software but that adds to the price of the system and few clients will pay for this. In the commercial world they do and the code is handed over.

So there are two solutions. Client pay for the code, the real development time of the code. 2. The client can pay to have the code placed in escrow.

What Julie is now advocating is that only her intellectual property cannot be used without her consent. But a CI's can be used so and more importantly, Clients have no obligation to pay for it. Every CI covers his programming labor with profits from other parts of the system. Only in commercial have I seen programming line items that actually reflect the time it takes to make the system work.



Alan