CMS licensing and support - how not to get burned

[Whitey]

When considering a new good quality CMS for publishing a lot of site's, or indeed a large single site, what are the guidelines , pro's and con's of licencing , fees, support and ownership ( intellectual property of your sites ) that won't burn you with fixed costs in the event of a downturn.

[travelin cat]

Whitey, are you referring to making your own CMS?

[Whitey]

I guess so. Our previous digital agency built out on a CMS that they owned and transference to a new agency and the narrowness of skills available to come up to speed created a lot of problems in transferring of the acoount. In the end we managed to negoitate a buy out of the CMS.

But it's not an experience i ever want to repeat.