Source Code Escrow

Makarand writes "According to this article in The Economic Times (India) Software companies in India are embracing the trend where source code for the software being bought or sold is kept safe with an escrow agent with carefully drafted agreements. This allows the buyer to get hold of the source code in cases where software was licensed from a start-up which has now folded or a breach of contract regarding the maintenance services that were agreed upon can be proven. The source code is automatically released upon the occurrence of any of the events mentioned in the escrow agreement and the buyer will be able to study the source code and continue to provide support services for the software bought without relying on the employees of the software supplier."

Comments

lawyerware

[Doc Ruby]

I'd love to see a patch to SourceForge which allows a lawfirm to use an RFC protocol to validate access to the escrow.

Re:A better way to avoid this problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source. Feeding no one. and no one. and no one still. Then your programmers die from lack of food.

Re:A better way to avoid this problem

[questamor]

Programmers don't need food. That's what Caffeine and Beer were invented for, to keep legions of coders alive.

What would Linus Torvalds say?

[robolemon]

Real men don't use code escrow agents, they upload their code to an FTP site and let everyone else put up mirrors.

Re:A better way to avoid this problem

[Stonent1]

Programmers don't need food. That's what Caffeine and Beer were invented for, to keep legions of coders alive.

Ok, who's gonna be the first one to make some caffeinated beer? I might vote for you in the next overlord election!