On Tuesday, September 24, 2002, at 04:46 PM, Crispin Cowan wrote: > In an industry where source code availability is rare, it does not > surprise me that ability to make use of source code is also rare. For desktop apps and relatively low-cost commodity software source code is rarely given to customers or VARs. At the high end, where a vendor is paid to develop a custom solution, or to adapt an existing package (a la Portland Water Bureau) source code is often given to the customer, after sufficient lawyer time is billed. Typical arrangements include NDAs, waivers of support (or by the hour support charges) if the customer changes the code, and all kinds of other contractual terms. The terms are negotiable. Sometimes the software vendors work with VARs they trust who have access to source, or VARs who can be covered by the customer's NDA. If a government agency buys or contracts for high-end software and fails to negotiate for access to the source code that's a failure of their procurement and contract negotiation process. One could also argue that failure to take precautions against the software vendor going out of business is a dangerous waste of public money and a negligent risk. The big company I referred to before--the Oracle shop--did not have source code to Oracle 9i. They did have source code to the Oracle-owned business modules and APIs they used. Anything we changed in house Oracle refused to support, though we could install the approved Oracle version to get that support back. I have never heard of anyone getting a source license to Oracle, but that doesn't mean they don't do it. But source access to applications built on top of Oracle, even those sold by Oracle, are common. I've seen that several times. I also know that H-P had source to the big-name CRM and ERP packages they bought because they had modified the source to integrate with their Java-based web applications. -- Greg Jorgensen PDXperts LLC, Portland, Oregon, USA
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