Intellectual Property and web development question.

meglome

Hi all

Myself and a friend of mine where discussing this the other day and a question came up that we weren't sure what the answer was.

You develop an online system (CMS/database etc) for a client which you licence them to use. At some point said client wants control over this system and access to the source code to change if they want, so they pay you for this. Does this mean that you can't use some of this same source code for another project or does it really depend on the small print of the agreement or...?

seamus

Afaik, most such agreements allow the client to alter the code, but not to distribute their alterations or to even create a new system based on your source code.

They don't prevent you from using your code elsewhere. Think of the GNU project - under the GPL, any modifications to or derivations from the originally licenced source, must abide by the same GPL as the original source code. So in your case, your own licence stands, even for the modified code.

This is probably why APIs and plugins are so popular - they allow people to make enhancements and customisations to software that they don't own, without modifying the source code. Because of this there is no conflict of IP rights and they can distribute the plugins all they like.

meglome

That's what I thought alright but neither of us was sure.

oeb

Either way, it would be adviseable to specify just this in your contract with the client. You should always cover yourself.