Hot answers tagged contract
42
The clauses you mention come from several different standard contracts.
An NDA basically covers "anything we tell you, you can't tell to anyone else, no matter what". There are some standard exceptions to this (which should be explicitly listed in the NDA). These standard exceptions are:
Publicly available knowledge from some other source.
Things that ...
38
Who is the client and what does he/she do?
Do the services they need mesh with what you offer?
Do they understand the type of services you offer?
Do they understand your rates (and not question them)?
What are they looking for in a provider?
Do they understand your work process?
What is their communication preference?
Are there any hurdles that will ...
30
I would tell them that you can't sign that without legal counsel, and as you didn't know they would be asking you to sign anything additional, they should cover your legal costs. Explain that you simply can't sign something that complicated without an expert to advise you.
If they refuse, don't sign it. If they cover your legal costs, let your attorney hash ...
29
Actual legality will depend upon jurisdiction. Consult an attorney for a definite answer.
A contractor is entitled to payment for agreed-upon work that was performed. Assuming your friend has met the terms of his contract for the localization enhancement, he is entitled to payment for that and the client is not allowed to withhold payment because of an ...
18
Intellectual Property Clauses
Such clauses may state that the employer owns all intellectual property rights for any creative work produced during employment. If this is something that is important to you then make sure all vagueness around the definition of intellectual property and creative work is clarified and/or removed.
As programmers we write a lot ...
16
While IANAL and YMMV, I would suggest two things.
First, get over the emotional attachment as quickly as you can (yes, easy for me to say), as that may cloud your judgment going forward.
Second, would be to avoid a specific retainer type contract, and to go with a simple time-and-materials contract for work done.
What if you get a new job that entails ...
15
I emailed the recruiter back and asked them to remove this clause
That was your first mistake. Recruiters don't want to do anything that would jeopardize their fee, so they'll tell you to sign anything, regardless of how bad the contract is for you. Talk to the hiring manager instead.
Is this worth sticking to my guns on?
You can only negotiate ...
14
When freelancing, I typically did 33%, 33%, 24% 10%, with the following milestones:
33% due when the client accepted the proposal
33% due when a working concept was delivered
24% due when a production concept was delivered
10% due 30 days after the delivery of a production concept
This gave me cash to start, cash when I finished the bulk of the work, ...
13
If your friend did contracting work, presumably, he or she has a signed contract. If there is a signed contract, one party to the contract has fulfilled his obligations, and the other party refuses to fulfill their obligations, the proper response is to sue and let the courts mediate the dispute. Assuming that the contract language and the situation is as ...
12
Be very careful of contracts that state that you can't work for any competitor for x number of month after leaving the company. Companies use the word competitor generously, so for a web development company this could include any company providing web based services.
This puts you in a terrible position if you get a better job offer or if your job ends up ...
12
No. The gating questions should be: "what is your experience in setting up e-commerce sites and optimizing for search engines? Show me your portfolio of those sites and let me know your references so I can contact them."
I set up an e-commerce site over a 3-day weekend from scratch (after about 2 weeks of research) and most of that was in figuring out how ...
12
There are some who are just trying to get some work and/or are looking for their first project to prove they can program. Others may be employed or have enough consulting work to charge more money. Better programmers should take fewer hours to complete the same programming task as well as, create solutions that lesser programmers will never come up with. ...
11
Don't rely on legal advice from random people on the Internet. You haven't even said where you are, and this particular question varies from state to state in the US. In California, the copyright would almost certainly be yours; in Texas, it would almost certainly be your employer's.
You need to talk to a lawyer in your jurisdiction that knows something ...
11
How do experienced developers make the decision of whether to take the project or just let it go?
Do I need the job? If so, I "take" the project.
What are some good metrics to make the decision easier?
How many choices do I have? More than 1? I can choose between the alternatives.
Only 1? Well. That's it then.
The "stress in my life" ...
11
From my experience: Never do work involving money for family members that you have to spend holidays with or friends that you want to keep. One of the parties involved will always feel like the other party is either charging too much or not paying enough and that they did the other party a favor. When the deadline comes up, they are usually the least ...
11
By asking this question you are basically underlining the fact that the project in question is indeed important enough to justify a contract. Really, all projects where money is involved, and even some where it's not, need a contract.
Drafting a basic contract which covers the scope of delivery and payment is probably less work than devising and ...
11
As James McLeod remarked, whether you can have "side projects" all depends on the company, and how the local legal jurisdiction treats employer/employee relationships.
For instance, Texas supports companies in enforcing these aspects of employment agreements. I knew a programmer in the '70s who worked in Houston for a company that said, "any creative work ...
10
Recap: Your friend brought you in, and, as a friend, asked you not to talk about the project. You agreed. Your friend is now talking to an investor, which means that there are potentially Big Bucks involved. The investor wants to bind and gag you, legally.
There is a basic concept in contract law known as "quid pro quo". In everyday language, this may ...
10
In all seriousness, get an attorney experienced in these matters.
It seems to me that your contractors are working on your behalf, accessing your software, and this is not "distribution" (in a common sense standpoint).
I would ensure that the contract with your contractors is a work for hire, causing you to own their work on your behalf (like an ...
9
First, the obvious point -- whatever you're going to do, put it in writing, and make sure the client is completely aware of how he is going to be charged. A surprising bill is a lot more harmful than a big bill, every time.
Second, the real money for you is in keeping a client over a long period, and making them unafraid to call you when they need you, not ...
9
Here's what Joel had to say about this in the article the OP linked to - emphasis mine:
There is, however, one clause I've seen in a lot of NDAs that I consider quite unacceptable. It is a clause which forbids you to hire anybody who works for the company that is making you sign the NDA... I recently signed this clause in a 3 page NDA...
While Joel ...
9
Your job offer is a reality. Someone from the same company branching out on his own with a cool idea that you would want to be part of is speculation; it may or may not happen.
If you say no to the current offer, you will lose out on a real opportunity.
If you say yes, you might lose out on a potential opportunity.
As the old saying goes,
A bird in ...
9
Short answer: Yes!
First, read the contract and understand what does it say about you leaving. If its "at will" then understand the client can walk any day away from you and vice versa.
Then you can drop a polite email to the recruiter explaining the circumstances and see if you can work out a reasonable solution for both him/her and you but make sure to ...
9
Specifications - be very firm about it. Ask them when the specification will be delivered. Unless you are doing general hourly work with no limits, you need to bid against the specification. Inform them that any change to the specification will result in a new quote to cover the changes.
This is not to be grumpy, but to save you from an uncommitted client ...
9
Get paid or Open Source the code
Any time a 'business interest' decides to establish legal restrictions I would absolutely make them pay for that privilege. A NDA is basically a gag order that prevents you from sharing internal information pertaining to their company/project. Basically, if you talk about information private to their company they have the ...
8
Joel Spolsky blogged about this. His main points were to look out for:
A clause which forbids you to hire anybody who works for the company that is making you sign the NDA
Non-compete clauses in their employment contracts
Another dangerous clause says that you agree not to hire, or cause to be hired, anybody from the company if you leave for a period of x ...
8
Does your employer own your side projects? by Joel Spolsky
There’s a surprising amount of misinformation out there about whether software companies own the work that a programmer does in their spare time.
From my answer to the question on answers.onstartups.com:
Being an employee of a high tech company whose product is intellectual means ...
8
Design by Contract and defensive programming are in some sense opposites of each other: in DbC, you define contracts between collaborators and you program under the assumption that the collaborators honor their contracts. In defensive programming, you program under the assumption that your collaborators violate their contracts.
A real square root routine ...
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