Hi, I didn't know where to post this, but I guess this forum suits the topic. I don't know a lot about working with developers and I recently had a project done up for pay by a developer, and therefore, I am not very "experienced" with this. I'm very pessimistic and I was just wondering how people prevent developers from stealing the code (and all your ideas) that they built for you and running off to profit from them? And I recently found another developer to modify an existing project, and it would involve me giving him the entire code. I'm scared that he would run off with the code and make it into his own website. I've always found that people usually put like copyrights inside their codes, but couldn't they just erase it? I've also thought about using contracts or binding agreements, but I'm not a big company or anything, so it would sound kind of ridiculous, don't you think? Is there a for-sure way to prevent this from happening? Or is it all trust? Would like to hear some suggestions from people who've experienced this and vice versa. Thanks.
You might want to use a non-disclosure agreement. I think you can find examples of a non-disclosure agreement online. I do not think anything is for sure. You may want to establish a long term relationship with a developer/programmer you like and trust. Q...
Just find someone who can be trusted use freelancing sites to find reviews about programmers and give the project to someone with high number of reviews
You do need to protect yourself with a contract between you and the developer and it is reasonable to include some legal protection there to stop the developer ripping off your entire code (non-disclosure agreement and definition of intellectual property rights). That will cover your confidentiality and protect any new inventions BUT you can't stop a developer re-using any ideas he might have had while working for you. If your developer is based in another country then settling any disputes legally is going to be really tricky. Find someone local, give them something small to start and build up your trust before you give them anything significant to do and make sure you ask for references.
An NDA is going to be fairly useless other than as a scare tactic for protection of an "idea" - they realistically only provide true protection for data Ultimately you have to simply find someone you trust and ensure your contract includes terms on who owns the end code.... whilst in some countries you have the "work for hire" concept where ownership automatically transfers in a buyer/ supplier relationship in other countries this does not apply and so unless the contract stipulates it the developer may still own the code afterwards. The general point is though, especially for companies more than freelancers, that a web development company makes its money by programming websites for clients. It doesnt make its money from running its own websites. If you came to us as a development company we would have no interest in creating you a site and then another copy for ourselves as I employ designers and programmers who dont have the knowledge of a webmaster/ "business" person and whilst I do, my time is more than full running my company without having a new start up to deal with too. The one slight caveat on that is that we may build reusable components as part of a job (eg a captcha script) which we will reuse on other projects however when ever these are identified as part of the requirements we charge only a "configuration and installation" fee rather than a development fee as it is unfair for you to pay the full costs and others to then only pay a lesser fee reusing the code we wrote for you.
I usually dont mind that people use my code, most of my software is open source anyway. But some of my commercial applications, i scramble with my custom made scrambler to change all variables into garbage. They can still "steal" my code but its so messed up that they would need to spend weeks at best before they can figure out how the code works, so it will keep em busy
Your looking at it from the wrong side though Arkserver - they are looking at it from a clients perspective... what is to stop the programmer from charging them the cost of writing bespoke software and then selling it as an off the shelf solution to other people?