lZakl - 12:27 pm on Mar 21, 2005 (gmt 0)

She actually works for a company that uses this software. They did not build it, they purchased it for a pretty hefty sum. This is where I am thinking it might be o.k.

1) Her company only owns a lease to the software they are using. It works on a contractual basis. Once you stop paying your monthly contract fee, the software no longer belongs to you.

2) If we were to finish this out, the only thing that could happen is for her employer to benefit from it. Since they don’t own the software they are using, nor are they in the “software business”, us breaking into the market would only do one thing as far as my perspective sees it ... And that is providing another option for them to use. They are using a system that is somewhat unstable in certain aspects, lacks compatibility with others, and serves absolutely no self-help options for the end user. Sometimes they’ve gone months without a part of their system operating fully. One time in particular almost put them back in the stone-age. But like I said there is only one other competitor, and they’re even worse. So of course the “Support Contract” we’ve come up with is phenomenally better as this is the main complaint amongst users of the other software.

The part that we are worried about, (her in particular) is her agency trying to claim they own the rights to the software, even though their services have nothing to do with the software business. You could compare her current job to supporting the database for a shipping and receiving company. So the company she works for has no ties to the software industry whatsoever, and they have no interest in it. However I wouldn’t put it past them to claim that she couldn’t have built this software without the knowledge gained by their employment, therefor they own it ... Just to save a buck.

So we literally will not be competing with her employer, as they will lose no revenue, resources, personnel, materials, etc. They only thing they may lose eventually if it takes off is an employee.

-- Zak