This is probably going to be unpopular. “Unsavory. ” friend of mine used to say that at opportune times.
So. Here's a question for you. A scenario, let's say. You know. Asking for a friend.
So i've been working on a project for several months now. It started out for a client, and I actually delivered a "working copy" of the directive last summer. It was crap, and I was P.O.'d at the client for some reason I can't remember, so I just gave them something that worked. Shakespeare and fools and all that. If you guys know me by now, you know i'm nuts... welll.. I have good days and bad. It takes too much effort to try to hide it, so I don't care anymore. I have to accomplish something in the meantime.
Some of you have helped me with parts of this, when we talked about WordPress stuff (most likely). Help with one WP thing, it all kind of relates. It's basically a notification plugin to integrate w/ Twilio API to send SMS text. The part where I came in; the custom part, was to dev a way to selectively choose recipients based on a demographic status of "active" vs "retired" (basically). You get the idea.
So how do you do that? Well, Adv Cust Fields, put info about that demographic. That's what the inexperienced Jeffrey tried. Then I discovered the WP_List_Table Class, and how it basically already does any sort of User mgt / Db query stuff for you, and formats it into that table you see in the Dashboard > Users (from admin view). I realized I could extend the class, and make the resulting table display the user demog status, and bulk select, set option in drop down to send the SMS to selected. Cool. But that's been MY project. That's what I envisioned the product would be that I delivered way-back-when. Granted, it's January but it's not like that was my full time focus all this time. Lots of stuff happened. Ultimately, I took my time and the alpha-product i have now is actually pretty decent. I'm almost satisfied. Another week or so, and it could easily go up on their plugins queue or whatever ( i expect so, at least ).
So, client got back in touch w/ me on this last week. Again, it's not totally totally finished, but it does what it was supposed to do, nicely. And with options.
Step back. On that phone conversation last week, he's like: "Well, we sent you that Drupal code from the other site where the plugin works... You already had what you needed to make it happen." Gimme a minute to stop laughing, right? Shake my head. It doesn't work like that. You'd think a guy who owns an IT company would bring that understanding to such a conversation. Stranger things. I digress.
Conversation is: how long till you finish it. I said, at least a day's work. I'd already offered I'd give it to them for $1,500.00. That's basically 2 weeks at whatever wage / $750/ week. We shouldn't work for less than that! And I put a LOT of time into this thing. But, a lot of that time was my own time, and I was focused on learning to do it correctly, taking my time, making notes. BS'ing about it in forums like this, etc.
Why am i posting this? Because, they intend to sell it, as part of... who knows what. Charge for it on that WP site, or whatever. I dont' even know. That's fine. But, I should get a cut of that then.
The Point:
So, maybe I want to license a "pro" copy to them.
Maybe I want to give it to them so they can see what it does, but in some limited capacity.
Obviously, PHP isn't like other code that would be compiled into a binary. Soon as I send it, it's theirs for the taking.
Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to rip them off. I'm concerned I'm the one who's going to be screwed. That's the point.
Do any of you have experience w/ that sort of thing? Covering your butt after you've put in a lot of work, yet you want to/ need to demo something to a client? I dunno. maybe no one will reply to this. I'm not trying to stir up political nastiness, or even philosophy (wow. i learned about the Richard Stallman defamation just last week. that's terrible. such is modern life, i suppose).
Thanks for reading.
