How to "Open Source" Custom, Contract Software? 392
customWorks asks: "I've been approached to write a piece of custom software for a small business owner with the promise of autonomy in its design and implementation. I do not intend to stick around for incremental development after I've delivered it, and so I feel strongly that open sourcing the software would be prudent for the both myself and prospective client. That said, I still expect to be paid for the developing the software. The issue of course is over convincing the client of the benefit of giving away the source to something they've just paid to have developed. I'd like to know if any of you who've done similar contract work have had experience (success?) in presenting an argument for open sourcing the end product? What were the major concerns/misperceptions that you had to overcome in making the case for open source?"
Open sourcing it buys the client and yourself nada (Score:5, Insightful)
So lots of comments and documentation are what you would produce if you truly have your client's best interests at heart.
Just give him the source (Score:3, Insightful)
TWW
Depends what exactly you have been paid for (Score:2, Insightful)
If the contract with the client states that all the IP you create belongs to the customer for whatever he wanted to do with it, then there's little point forcing the customer to do something specific with it.
Either way, the customer will face the problem of later support and evolution. If he cannot get hands on you, he either has to hire someone for hard bucks, or he donates the stuff to the public and crosses his fingers that someone will take care of it. Which does not necessarily mean the necessary work is done then - this depends on how 'hot' that piece of software actually is. You might have problems making some 08-15 applet Open Source in the hope of getting volunteers.
--Ben
major concern (Score:4, Insightful)
The dialouge will go something like this:
Coder: Let's open source this after you pay me to write it.
Buyer: Wait. So once we pay you to produce this for us, you want us to let you open source it, in effect giving it away for free?
Coder: Yeah. It's neat. Information wants to be free.
Buyer: But you want to be paid.
Coder: Yeah, I gots ta get paid.
Buyer: They don't require computer science majors to take economics, do they?
Seriously here. A buyer who is paying to get a custom piece of software made for them will be very very reluctant to let the rest of the world have that software for free once they have it. Especially if they have competitors. Especially if that software is mission critical at all.
In summary, best of luck. But perhaps opensource idealism should get a bit more used to taking a back seat to harsh economic reality.
*ends post, dons flame proof suit*
Emphasize the benefits (Score:5, Insightful)
As a second, less important, benefit you can mention that there is a possibility that others will pick it up for use in their projects, and those improvements will benefit them without it costing them anything at all.
When they ask why they should pay you to write it in the first place if you're just going to turn around and open it, point out that without a developer under contract to write it, it won't be written at all in the first place. Emphasize that the open sourcing is about the maintenance of the software after it's been written, not about a different model for the development.
/Janne
Are you using any GPL'd code fragments? (Score:3, Insightful)
Depending on the scale of the project, and the odds that the code segments you need already exist, you have to determine how much time savings you'd have by researching previous GPL'd projects over writing it on your own.
Although many companies wish to retain the rights to software you write, there are very few people who don't re-use bits from project to project. [Hell, it'd be downright foolish not to use already written and tested code]. As such, on any programing project I take, although there might be an NDA, I still retain the right to re-use the code in any further projects. Otherwise, I run into the risk that my common code library will be locked down once it's in use in this project, and I'd rather not take the project.
[even if they paid me more than my going rate, I'd be worried about using knowledge that I got from the project towards another project, and getting sued.]
Why is this guy hiring you? (Score:3, Insightful)
Custom apps (Score:5, Insightful)
Next, you'd have to show me that releasing the code would not open me to any liability nor to any security breach. Saying that "more eyes see more bugs" is not an answer either, because I'd still have to pay someone to integrate fixes or, at least, re-install on my system each time an eye found a bug.
Finally, you'd have to show me that I couldn't profitably sell this as a product - probably not a big deal, as software doesn't appear to be your customer's area of expertise, but small businesses live and die on cash flow and, if I can keep it proprietary, not do anything to support it, and still charge money for it (i.e., the Microsoft strategy :-), I'd still do it...
Re:ala Big Corporate Mofos (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The client should own the code (Score:5, Insightful)
As a side note, putting it under a Free license (GPL, BSDL, whatever) doesn't necessarily mean he's going to release the source to the general public, or even at all. With the GPL, he only has to give the source to anyone to whom he supplies the binaries.
*Clue Stick* (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember though, that your name is going to be associated with that code for all future developers to see. You better take some time and carefully document everything you do. Your code is a personal reflection of you and your work ethic, so you don't want people to get the wrong idea.
Re:and further... (Score:3, Insightful)
Me thinks the guy just wanted to get on the front page of Slashdot, and he figured the phrase "open source" was a good way to do so.
Your idea (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd have fired you long ago because you won't continue to support your work. (Of course, writing an app so good it never NEEDS suport is another matter altogether.) It's completely ridiculous to assume that publishing the source under whatever open license will instantly give you an army of developers willing to continue to support and continue developing on the application for free.
Normally what you'd do is write the opensource app, and then a compnay would hire you to extend and support your own application inside of their project - in that case, then you could start talking with the compnay about whether the changes would be opensourced or not. In this case, you're turning the whole thing on its head.
Still, you may be right in that opensourcing the project would be a good idea for the company - but that is a decision that should be made INDEPENDENT of the development itself. The company should approach the decision with the assumption that the package is already developed, or even better AFTER the package IS developed. Most importantly, do not give this company any kind of false hope about what opensourcing the software will do. If you are a developer who actually runs any opensource projects, I don't really know why you would even think of recommending this so soon.
Who is the customer here (Score:4, Insightful)
1) Moral objection -- then do or do not (sorry Yoda). You may choose to express you moral view or not to client depending on whether proseltyzing is worth the effort/benefit ratio. If you fail to persuade, do you turn down the job?, if not, see point 3
2) Don't want to support -- then don't support, let customer know this, and why (at least if they ask). If you feel OSS makes a different in support, see point 3.
3) Anticipated benefit to customer -- explain your view of benefit, let customer choose.
4) Want to use exising OSS, see #3
If all you want is additional bullet points for #3, I'm sure you'll get plenty of opinions on slashdot. But, I would recommend sticking to things I believe in and understand (preferably have experience with) when making the case for OSS.
Hmm, point 3 seems to be pretty important. Give the customer a rational (or emotional) basis for making a decision. And let them make a decision. It's their money, their project, not yours. Of course, if its a moral issue with you, don't violate your morals. Don't come crying to anyone if you have to sacrifce though, high morality requires that you be consistent and be willing to accept the sacrifice it may involve.
My life is complicated enough without having to convert others. Matters of religion, politics, etc. are very similar to the arguments we coders get into -- We believe strongly in what we believe, for waht we believe to be good reasons, others believe just as strongly differently. You may convince some, other's you just make mad.
I may believe it's worth arguing religion (save their soul, or save the waste of their time/beliefe in myths, not saying which i follow). Politics -- you get morality and economics. But coding
You definitely need to give the client the source (Score:3, Insightful)
Your best bet is to give the client the source code. You need to choose whether or not you want to retain rights to the source code, or give all rights to the client. Most contract programming jobs I've ever heard of require that the client not only gets the binaries and documentation (and sometimes training) but also the source code and complete rights to the source. That way, you don't depend on you for incrimental improvements. They can hire their own developers to do that if they have the source.
Honestly, if this is a custom job that is likely only of interest to the client (and perhaps the client's business competition), you are ripping them off by not giving them the source. But again, it's your job to choose whether or not you want to retain the copyright to the code for yourself, or give all rights to the client.
Geez... (Score:2, Insightful)
First, there are an awful lot of folks here who are beginning to sound a little like a bunch of NW fools I can think of.
Second, I'm no coder. I'm one of the owners of an engineering co. that hires coders. And I "get it".
If some coder thinks he can tell me what to do with something I am paying him for he can hit the road, period.
OTOH, I am currently paying a coder to develope a number of OpenLDAP tools for managing and syncing user accounts across multiple servers. I have every intention of "open-sourcing" these once they are debugged and useful.
But just because I get it does not mean I will stand for being told what to do by an employee. Instead of arguing about IP, you folks should be figuring out how to make the PHBs "get it".
Re:Bah... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is fairly common in contracting actually.
IN many kinds of contracting at that.
For instance.. construction. Often when you hire someone to come in and renovate your building, they do up blueprints of the finished design.
Generally they own these prints, not you. Sure, you were paying them along the way, but that was for labor and a result, not everything in between.
Just the same, if you pay me to write you some software, you do not own everything I think about in the meantime by default.
The terms of who owns what IP has to be set out in the contract, otherwise it's far too ambiguous.
If a company comes to you with a deisgn and they just want someone to implement, odds are they aren't going to let you keep the copyright. On the other hand, if they are merely paying you to deliver a solution, then copyright can stay with you.
It really boils down to what they want.
Re:Are you using any GPL'd code fragments? (Score:2, Insightful)
You do it for less if you open source it (Score:2, Insightful)
Umm... How does open source make sense in this? (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottom line is, he will have to hire someone else to maintain it anyways, because I can assure you that the open source community will have no interest in maintaining it for him, but he will have given it away to all his competitors. He is a fool to go the open source route.
give them a choice (Score:2, Insightful)
You could try convincing them about the virtues of OSS, but at the end, most businesses are more interested in the bottom line...
Re:major concern (Score:2, Insightful)
How is that not a great deal for the client?
Be OPEN with the client. (Score:2, Insightful)
Does the client know this?
Be open with your clients.
Lay all the options on the table and let the customer decide.
Explain why you cannot maintain the software.
You could be assuming they expect you to maintain it. (Assuming too much is a bad habit).
Being open in all aspects, is the best thing "Open source" advocates have going for them.
Re:Bah... (Score:2, Insightful)
Applying the analogy, that would be more like the programmer owning the copyrights to the specification and use cases etc, while the customer owns the software.
I would think that contract programming would be a 'work for hire' kinda deal.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:major concern (Score:3, Insightful)
Buyer: But that means that I will pay you for a product that all of my competitors will get for free. They also get all the advantages I do, including other people improving the code. They get that for free, as well.
Buyer: Why do I not just wait for them to contact you to write an open source solution and then use what you write for free?
Client's IP, your advice (Score:2, Insightful)
Your client could be convinced to open-source something if:
On the last point, they might agree if you can show the client that what you will be writing will indeed be picked up by some other people/companies. These other people would be interested in what you wrote because they would also need what you wrote, and the improvements made by others can provide a direct benefit to your client.
I realize that the logic is somewhat circular here. You have to prove it's good enough for everybody, and then everybody else would do something that's good enough for your client. Presumably then they would also need the technical expertise to actually use what you did.
The other problem is convincing the client that there is nothing proprietary to them in the software. If they hired you, it usually means they don't have enough in-house expertise to decide this, and their decision will be no.
If this gets open sourced, your name would be on it, and that means you would be on the hook to _everybody_. It does not absolve you of the responsibility of maintaining the software and defending your design decisions. In fact, it makes you more responsible.
I have worked with companies who thought about this long and hard, and typically did not do it. The exception was software that was end-of-life, with maintenance being cut, and the costs amortized. At that point, unless one of the points above applies, it can make sense because open-sourcing internal software is a hedge for maintenance provided several others start using it and work on it.
On the IP-side, the work you are doing is considered "work for hire." This means your client owns the IP, all of it. It's like being an architect: you draw plans, and if the client goes ahead with building the building they have full rights. Yes, your name is on it, yes, you have liability exposure, but they own the work, because they bought it from you. The only way to get around it is if the agreement between you and the company states clearly that you are giving them a license as opposed to performing work for hire. If you want to be really clear about what you're giving away, get a lawyer - your client likely has one too.
just my half-cent.
Re:The client should own the code (Score:2, Insightful)
The client is paying you for your time in developing an application.
Not always. In my experience, there are several types of customers for contract programming:
one who wants a tool
one who wants a new product
Those interested in a tool aren't normally interested in the source code, other than as a form of support. Normally, they're not paying you for your time or for ownership of the source code. They want a tool to do a job and are willing to pay for it.
Many of them know enough to ask for the source code so they can get bugfixes if you happen to be run over by a doughnut wagon. Even in this case they usually don't want ownership of the source code--they just want a license to it.
Normally the people who want you to create (part of) a product are the ones who want you to relenquish the rights to the code. If so, make sure you charge them accordingly. After all, for my customers who buy a tool, I can use significant chunks of code I've used in many other projects. I can't use my subroutines for customers wanting exclusive rights, so not only do they pay for the extra time in reinventing wheels (or the purchase of third-party libraries to do tasks), they also get to pay for the exclusivity.
As an (admittedly ridiculous) example, suppose a secretary wanted a word processing program, but no word processing software exists yet. She could pay you to write one for her. She doesn't really want to sell word processors or anything, she just wants one to help her business. You could write one for her, and she could write you a check.
For that money, they should get at least:
1) The binaries
2) documentation
3) support
No argument there...
If you can't give them support, the ethical thing to do would be to let them know, and give them the source code so that they can have someone else maintain it.
Giving them support can come in many forms, one of which is making available the source code so they can get someone to fix it if you're unavailable.
But THEY should choose whether to open source the code or not. They paid for it. It's their decision, not yours.
cyber_spaz
So you don't want to be paid to maintain it? (Score:3, Insightful)
If anyone has ever had to deal with a Lawyer you know what I mean. Call the man to chit chat for 15 mins and you get a bill in the mail for his $450/hr rate divided by 4. No kidding. Why should your time be worth anything less?
Don't give your software away and don't sign away your ideas if you can help it(i.e. IP). Every idea in your head is worth money to someone even though you may not realize it. Telling your client that you recommend giving this software away will make them feel insecure and they will also be reluctant to hire you again to maintain and extend the software. Also, If the software truly is 'unique' it is another feather in your hat that the next contracter DOESNT HAVE. Don't work yourself out of a job. Know the difference between what is work and what is your hobby.
Regards,
Peter
Re:and further... (Score:2, Insightful)
If it's useful, and people hear about it, they'll use it.
And since he's doing it for a client, it's got a headstart in that he will actually produce a working model, rather than one of those projects that never even gets to a beta version.
Why would the company open source it?
First, they need the product. They need a working tool, and it's not something that is currently available (to their knowledge). So they are going to develop it, regardless of Open Source support to begin with.
But, that's all they need. It's internal, so they aren't going to sell it to anyone else. They wouldn't be losing any income.
It will need maintenance. It may need small, ongoing maintenance forever - somethings are like that. It sounds like original developer may not be available.
If they opensource the product when it's been developed, they haven't lost anything, they still have the tool they wanted.
Meanwhile, on the principle maintenance costs just keep accumulating, and can add up to more than the cost of the original product over time (depends what it is of course), if it goes opensource, the maintenance costs get taken on by the other users as well.
The company benefits from any improvement or maintenance that other users make to the product, with no extra cost to them.
Re:you are lucky! (Score:0, Insightful)
There are a tremendous number of employed, diligent, hard working, talented people in the tech industry right now: Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands of them. Just because you are having tough luck, don't confuse that and presume that everyone else is "lucky" because they aren't in your shoes.
Re:Don't reveal your client's identity (Score:3, Insightful)
Here's the easiest way to put the argument: sure it's harder for the attacker, but it's like using a Kryptonite lock and duct tape to attach your bike to the bike rack. Sure it's more secure, but not worth the effort. If you think you need the duct tape, maybe you should lock your bike in a better neighborhood and spend your time walking an extra 4 bocks or something instead of spending that same ammount of time attaching and cutting duct tape. In the same way, you should spend your time properly securing and maintaining all of your boxes, setting up proper cryptography, and enforcing strong passwords with proper limits on lifetimes. Try getting help setting up a firewall from MIT Network Security and they'll tell you to set up cron jobs to port scan your boxes and vulnerability scan your boxes instead. It's a bit extreme to discourage the use of firewalls, but I can definately see where thy're comming from. Just like Morris discouraging shadowed password files. md5 passwords and strongly enforced password complexity offer MUCH better seccurity than shadowed crypt password files.
Framework/Application model works best here (Score:2, Insightful)
We have an arrangement with our customers which works out very well for both of us. Once you factor in the incentives of both parties, this arrangement naturally leads to a happy situation for both parties.
We come into the relationship with a substantial framework, which we license to the customer under the GPL. As the relationship progresses, we build many components. Some of these components are specific to the customer's business process, and some are more generic. We retain all IP rights to the generic components, which we integrate into the framework and license back to the customer under the GPL. The customer retains all IP rights to code that is specific to their business process.
We maintain a code repository for each customer which contains their business specific code. These are typically workflow definitions, business specific data models, entry screens and reports, etc.
We also maintain a common repository for the framework, which contains all the reusable code (whatever we define to be reusable). We usually have a few projects going on at the same time, and this repository receives contributions from all of them.
The benefits of this arrangement for the customer are:
* Customer owns specific business process logic, UI elements, data models for their business, which means that they control their trade secrets and we can't go to their competitors and sell them the system they payed to custom build. In return, customer is solely responsible for paying someone (usually us) for maintaining and enhancing these components as their business changes.
* Customer does not have to pay to build a major system from scratch. They get a tested and tuned framework for free upon entering the contract, and only pay for customization, which is a process we excel at. In this fashion, we can deliver a return quickly and with minimal expenditure, since we don't have to build much infrastructure.
* Customer gains the benefit of framework enhancements for other customers. Over time, as contributions are made to the core framework, more and more reusable functionality is available to incorporate into our custom solutions. This has the effect of bringing sophisticated functionality into the customer's price range. In effect, all our customers indirectly share the cost of maintenance, tuning, and additional generic functionality.
* If we go out of business for some reason, the customers have all the source code they need to achieve continuity.
The benefits of this arrangement for us are:
* We gain a powerful framework that is tested and tuned across multiple production deployments.
* We can out-bid competitors who need to build things from scratch, who base their work on proprietary software which they cannot enhance or control, or who must recoup massive amounts of R&D , marketing expense, and capital risk.
* We spend our time solving unique business and technical problems, as opposed to re-coding functionality for multiple customers simply because we don't own IP.
* We spend very little time on maintenance because most of the difficult code is maintained in one place- application specific code is mostly declarative.
* We do not have to pressure customers to buy upgrades. We keep customers current as part of the development process.
We have been modestly successful using this model, and people who work with us, both developers and customers, are happy and getting good value.
Once caviat- our customers tend to be in a line of business other that software development, thus they care less about owning software IP than than do about streamlining their business processes.
Hopefully this will inspire some ideas.
Mike
What's in it for the client? - Cost Savings? (Score:1, Insightful)
In this way, I don't have to code everyting up from scratch or buy a lot of possibly expensive libraries and modules.
Or, I may have written a similar package in the past and can use that as a starting point.
There are many reasons why a client will pay me to do custom work for them and still be happy to let me GPL the result.
If you happen to not run into these situations, so be it, but others (at least I) do all the time.
A Nony Mouse
Copyright and Work for Hire (Score:2, Insightful)
That said, you have an ethical obligation to work out a resolution with your client.
(Assigning it in the contract is also considered a work for hire.)
In theory, theory and practice are the same, in practice, they are not.
Re:Open sourcing it buys the client and yourself n (Score:1, Insightful)
Open Source in Two Years Clause. (Score:3, Insightful)
The client gets exclusive rights to the software for two years at which point the software becomes open source. This would manifest in the form of a clause in the contract stating such.
This would give the client room to breathe against competitors or enemies seeking to compromise their software, gain from their expense, etc. while still allowing for the continuation of the code in the open community. If the code is interesting enough to still be viable in two years then it will persist.
This is very similar to having someone license technology but instead of losing their rights to the tech they merely have to share with everyone else, though not any additional modifications they have made to the code in the meanwhile.
This would also mean that the code would have to be put into escrow in order to meet the requirements of the contract for both parties and as an insurance measure for both parties.' Escrow 'meaning that a 3rd party would have a copy of the original code and would release it into open source according to the contract despite any intentions of the two parties otherwise.
Seems like a lot of effort but if you think your code is important enough to the community at large then this would be worthwhile because of the checks and balances it imposes. The client would of course pay for everything.