RE: Copyright of data

[Bob Crothers <bcrothers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Don,

I agree with your statement regarding escrow and the court 
system.

You will also notice that I did distinguish between LOB software 
(inventory, accounting, etc) and Horizontal (Fax Servers, DBU, 
PCL5 Forms generation, Hawkeye, etc).

LOB normaly does have source code.  But then you are paying BIG 
bucks for the software.  But with horizontal apps, you are only 
spending a few thousand on it.  Plus, there tends to be a lot 
more "trade secrets" involved.

Regards,
Bob Crothers
Cornerstone Communications

-----Original Message-----
From:   Don [SMTP:dr2@access.digex.net]
Sent:   Thursday, January 22, 1998 2:38 PM
To:     Bob Crothers
Cc:     'MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com'
Subject:        RE: Copyright of data



Bob, et al,

> Putting code "in escrow" isn't to protect the vendor, but to
> protect the customer in case the vendor goes "belly up".
>


The problem with this is that if a company goes toes up, the 
software in
escrow is a asset that can be attached by the creditors.  This 
means it
can be tied up in court for a helluva longer time than you can 
wait.  I
NEVER NEVER NEVER allow ANY client to agree to a software firm 
that
insists on this arrangement, soley for this reason.  I always 
insist that
a client require the source code delivery to be part of the 
software
contract.  If a vendor has a problem with delivering source 
code, then I
dont' need the vendor...there's alot of software houses out 
there...

...just my opinion...and I might be wrong...:)

Don in DC metro


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