Legal Matter

[sphinx_]

hey there, hoping someone out there can help.

I'm needing some help on the legality and laws pertaining to software development. I'll give the story and then you can see where I'm getting stuck.

We have been getting a piece of software developed for us by a company (that I'll keep nameless) they have brought back there version of what we need. We are no where near satisfied with it, they have missed the speck of the program completely. There is a company out there that has a piece of software that will do what we need and how we need it done. Now this is where the problem comes in, this company that is developing the software wants to go through to a demo of the working software so they can see it and adapt there program to work like it.

is this legal?

 

[Deenem]

Probably legal, because they won't be copying the source code.

But it sounds like you have a commuication problem between yourself and the developer and I don't think that staring at someone elses software is going to solve that problem.

Not until you and the developer both understand the requirement will you get the software that you want.

 

[sphinx_]

There is a communication problem, it is one where everything we request is out of Speck and will require more money not that paying is a problem if we get some that will work. I'd love nothing more than to drop this developer, but he has some connection to our parent company so my hands are tied!

 

[LazyLion]

Probably legal, because they won't be copying the source code.

But it sounds like you have a commuication problem between yourself and the developer and I don't think that staring at someone elses software is going to solve that problem.

Not until you and the developer both understand the requirement will you get the software that you want.

It depends whether or not they copy the source code, but also whether or not the other company holds any patents on what their software does.

If they are just going to look at it to see if they can mimic what it does, nothing wrong with that. But if they are going to reverse engineer it, then they will probably run into license restrictions.

Either way, if there is already a viable program out there that does what you want and it is not too expensive, then you are wasting your time with this other developer. Just tell them to get lost.