Griffiths, Richard
R.Griffiths at bury.gov.uk
Fri Feb 24 03:25:48 CST 2006
Hi Group I am a stand alone software developer and have been asked by a client to add (a line/paragraph) into the contract (for a piece of off-the-shelf software I have written) something to ensure that should my business go bankrupt/fail the source code can be released to them for product support. I have no problem with this and understand their concerns. What I'm not sure about is the appropriate wording for this - does anyone have any advice/standard wording they use for this purpose. I have put something together myself but the contract will go to their contracts department (we are talking about a local government client here) for scrutiny. As I have said I am happy to release the source code should my business fail but I don't want to lose any copyright/ownership - also I am finding it difficult to cover what product support constitutes - I don't want to have to release the code if they demand enhancements that I do not want to develop at that time say. Equally I don't want to write a long protracted contract (the software only costs £5000 so I'm not going to get legal advice or use Escrow) - I am looking for something simple and to the point. All contributions welcome. Richard