Jennifer Gross
jengross at gte.net
Thu Jun 19 12:17:49 CDT 2008
Good Morning Everyone, For all of my clients I am their single point of contact for MS Access database development, modifications, complex queries, etc. I suspect that a lot of you are as well. I am interested to know what contractual and physical processes as emergency steps that you have in place to provide a modicum of continuity to the client should you be abducted by aliens or hit by a bus and no longer able to fulfill your role for your clients. How are you handling intellectual property issues? Do you install MDB or MDE to protect your copyright? In my thinking, if I were to suddenly go to the great beyond my children should inherit my copyrights as some of the systems that are single installs for my clients have the potentiality of being marketable software packages. In addition, each stand alone system has intellectual property value in and of itself. My newer contracts specify that I am only providing a license to the client to run the code. Older contracts are silent on this issue, which I have learned through legal battle means that I own the copyright. Also, aside from the copyright issues do you provide your clients with a list of individuals who could step in if you are out of commission, a means to access backup files, developer password information and any other issues that you have considered should aliens carry you off in the night. Thanks in advance for your thoughts, Jennifer