What's the matter with re-using the code and charging the same rate for
it? You're a business, and you're supposed to make money. I currently
charge by the hour, but I'm trying whereever possible to move away from
hourly rates into fixed price services. Why?
Perhaps I stated my views a bit rashly. I'm not of the opinion that it is
wrong to re-use code, merely that I was wondering how to specify the hourly
rate if doing so. Seeing now (even though I couldn't say I have large enough
control group ;-) ) that it is common to re-use and charge as normal,
I wouldn't say it's common practice, but it makes good business sense to refine your tools to the point where they can be reused over and over with a lot less new code for each resale.
a) The client knows exactly what to expect in terms of price and result
b) I don't spend half my days quoting every last detail of a job
c) I have the opportunity to re-use code over and over, making a
PROFIT, rather than braking even all the time
I totally agree with (a) and (b), but what about (c)? Is it that hard to
make a profit if one actually has to put some work into it? I.e. do you
consider PHP/db development to be a large competition-driven field (within
the larger field of software/script dev)?
I don't understand the question.
Copyright is the simple answer, but it needs to be a) observed by your clients b) enforced by you when not observed by clients
Yes, I agree. But for (b), how can I enforce it since PHP code resides on
servers. My scenario is this: I develop scripts for the (aforementioned web
designers), cooperation ends and we go separate paths. Now how do I enforce
my copyright when I have no insight into their other projects nor the web
servers they work with?
I can't answer that -- you need to talk to lawyers and seek legal advice. All I know is that copyright laws are there to protect. The catch is that enforcing this protection usually takes money.
You can always compile your scripts, and supply them with compiled (encoded) products, rather than source scripts. This of course would depend on the copyright agreement you have with your clients.
This is actually totally new to me. Compiling scripts, storing the (encoded)
products on the server. What are the formats? Standards? Web servers /
RDBM's that recognize these formats?
[snip]
Compiling with Zend encoder or similar, as stated above.
Zend encoder. Okay! Though it partially answers my above question about
encoding scripts, I would be grateful to get some more pointers on the
technical nuts and bolts... (even though I probably can just start using the
Zend encoder - always interested in learning more).
Encoded scripts can run on virtually any server running PHP, using the optimiser (?). Of course, you could read about it all on Zend.com.
Justin French
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