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Originally Posted by neilorourke
I have approached a web development company to rebuild my website.
My initial impression was that they would build this then hand it over to me. I understand though that they will retain the intellectual property rights and provide me with a life time license. This means that the website will have to remain on their server even if I decided to sell it.
Is this now the standard approach to developing web applications or is this an unusual arrangement?
Thanks
Neil
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No, No, No, don't do that if you can possibly avoid it - they've got you locked in.
Unless they have some special system or service you absolutely need, you shouldn't cede that sort of control to them, as they've got you over a barrel.
I recently did a site rebuild for someone locked into that sort of arrangement: CMS licence, hosting and "support" was costing £1500/year (that's roughly $3000 to you Americans) for a fairly standard site. Support was negligible - every time they asked for help it was always "oh no, that's not covered, and that'll be a day at £500 / $1000..."
Keep the ownership of your site, and make sure you use a system that is developer independent (in case he goes bust, or you fall out), and that you can move to a new host if you wish.
Make sure that any contract you sign with a developer ultimately assigns all copyright and IP to you - we have a retention clause that states we own everything until paid in full, after that copyright and all IP becomes the client's.
The fact that you're on this forum suggests that you aren't comfortable with what's been offered - so I'd follow your instinct, because its a recipe for much future unhappiness.