Should You Share The Ownership Of Your Software?
How Shared Ownership Works
The Challenges Of Shared Ownership
- Your developer has not delivered on the initial commitments (e.g. timeline, code completeness, code quality etc.) and you need to find a new developer. At this point, your developer refuses to release the source code of your app because you haven’t fully paid for it.
- Your developer has disappeared and stopped returning all of your calls. You’ve already spent a year working with them to get the software built but you have no recourse because it isn’t your software yet.
- Your developer is still working on your software but clearly, you are the lowest priority and they are servicing other “paying” clients as their top priority
- Your developer uses your software for other clients or to create a competing product with the mindset that you haven’t paid for the work so they need to find another way to get compensated
- The developer goes out of business in the middle of the project and all work on the product stops
- Your developer disagrees with your product vision and only agrees to finish the application if you implement it in a way that they agree with
- Your developer implements the software using a technology they are most comfortable with but that others are not willing or able to support in the future
Customer testimonial from a past client who lost control of their software product.
Conclusion
If you are considering alternative ways to fund your software development project, look at protecting yourself. No matter the payment arrangement, make sure that you secure complete access and ownership of your source code at every step of the way.
If the developer that you are working with is not able to do this for you, it is important enough that you walk away and find someone else who is.
For more information regarding this topic, you can read our blog about why you need to own your source code.
6 Items That Are Non-Negotiable When Building Software
Before you get started in developing your software app, discover what is non-negotiable in building a successful software application. In this guide, we share how to build your application on a solid foundation from nearly twenty years of our own personal experience.
You can grab a copy of the guide below and share it with your team!