Comment No distinction between product dev vs consultancy (Score 1) 389
This survey is biased -- it assume defacto that there there is no "line in the sand" about whether code is proprietary or not when it is repurposed, or copied for use from another client or employer, or any other purpose.
It also makes no distinction between coding to sell software to a client, or being paid as a consultant to develop an application for a client, which are very different things. The later assume the codebase is written for developing a software product -- the product itself will be sold, not the cost of creating the product for a specific purpose. Think Microsoft Office - a develper writes code for Microsoft to include in a project which will be sold. The developer is paid to write code for the product, which is proprietary to Microsoft. A Developer re-using any or all of this proprietary code is harmfully wrong, in my opinion.
However, In my trade, we are often paid to fuse original code and free code libraries with custom development for a client, for a specific application. The client is paying us for the service of assembling and customizing an application for their specific needs, not to resell to someone else (ala Microsoft Office). In this case, the client does own the code we wrote in the sense that it is theirs to use, but if open source libraries were used or other generic/free code snippets and routines were deployed, it is understood that they do not own this code, but they can use and modify it (And pay for us to modify it more!) at will.
In this latter case, copying code is a non-issue. The code is not what is being bought, the labor and expertise of the consultantancy in assembling an application is.
It also makes no distinction between coding to sell software to a client, or being paid as a consultant to develop an application for a client, which are very different things. The later assume the codebase is written for developing a software product -- the product itself will be sold, not the cost of creating the product for a specific purpose. Think Microsoft Office - a develper writes code for Microsoft to include in a project which will be sold. The developer is paid to write code for the product, which is proprietary to Microsoft. A Developer re-using any or all of this proprietary code is harmfully wrong, in my opinion.
However, In my trade, we are often paid to fuse original code and free code libraries with custom development for a client, for a specific application. The client is paying us for the service of assembling and customizing an application for their specific needs, not to resell to someone else (ala Microsoft Office). In this case, the client does own the code we wrote in the sense that it is theirs to use, but if open source libraries were used or other generic/free code snippets and routines were deployed, it is understood that they do not own this code, but they can use and modify it (And pay for us to modify it more!) at will.
In this latter case, copying code is a non-issue. The code is not what is being bought, the labor and expertise of the consultantancy in assembling an application is.
