Re: Self Destruct code

On Wed, 8 May 2002, PHPCoder wrote: > So, that leaves the contract as my only and last resort... Firstly, my > problem with contracts being my safety net: I am not a lawyer, don't > want to be, and don't have the time to go to court. Secondly, lawsuits > can be dragged out over several years depending on the amount and > parties involved, and the problem is, some clients know this and > deliberately try to exploit this. Granted, I've no experience with South African courts, but I am willing to bet that your image of how things work is not so accurate. Nobody is going to "drag out" a $5000 development bill for "several years" - it would cost them much more than that in attorney's fees, and with a matter that small, the judge would get sick of them long before and award you the money. > Which brings me to the question, shouldn't we start a project that > addresses this problem? I am aware of the dangers of having a "free" > Zend encoder; what will prevent people from encrypting everything they > do, and hence cause the PHP community to suffer from this ( possibly?), > but I believe that this community has been here long enough and we have > enough dedicated open source people who knows what it's all about to > sustain it even if there were such dangers lurking. While I don't have any particular interest in the development of such a tool, I don't see this as a likely consequence either. My guess would be that 80% of the developers - and 100% of the most experienced ones - would continue to put their code out to the community in exactly the same way. I think I understand why the Zend group drew the line where they did in choosing to charge for the encoder. While PHP has a wide range of uses, from learning to testing to development, and is applicable to every organization with online communication needs, the encoder serves a solely pecuniary purpose: Bolstering one's ability to charge for code they've developed. I don't think the decision had anything to do with a perceived need to protect the world of PHP from some sort of Pandora's Box that will destroy open source forever. > I think this needs much more thought and much more input from others. > Again, I am not trying to shoot down the suggestions about having a > sound legal contract and regular billing etc, I am just playing devil's > advocate and looking at the worst case for the "smaller" developers that > are left to the wolves. Even the smallest developers need to be good businesspeople if they're going to try to make money for their work. I don't think there's any way around that. Business is business, and if you can't work out solid and equitable arrangements with clients, then you should probably go work for someone who can (not to sound harsh, just realistic). miguel