License purchase questions

[mooball]

I own a web development company and we have a range of developers, some full time staff and some contractors. On any one project anything from 1 to about 8 people may be involved in development. Some of them for only an hour, some for 6 months.

We are about to build some software for a client and they want to use the Ext JS framework. The customer wants to have 100% ownership of the IP (which we are happy to assign to them). We expect this to be a project that has a good 10 year life and it will involve ongoing work for many years.

My question relates to the purchase of the commercial license/s. I have no idea which staff will work on the project - it will most likely be 1 main person, but the project is likely to last for many years and from time to time I may need to call a contractor in to do perhaps an hours work here or there, also I will have staff turnover from time to time and a contractor who may work on the code for a few hours one month may not be the same contractor who does work a month later.

So Im trying to work our who the licenses are 'owned' by and who they apply to. I presume if my company buys the license then 'You' in the contract refers to the company - but how does that relate to my staff? I cant possibly assign the license to staff or contractors because they may only work on the code for a very short period of time and move on - I would then need to buy new licenses every time a get a new contractor to do a couple of hour work.

Also the developers are not the owners of the code so they have no control or input into the software licensing or usage. The license states that there are obligations for the developer in terms of use and distribution of the code but that it simply impossible for them to comply with because they dont own or have any control over the code. There seems to be some underlying assumption that the developer is the owner of the code and the obligations are tied together but in our case that is not how it works.

Also given that the software will actually be owned by my client, not my company - should it be my client who is purchasing the licenses?

I have to say that the entire idea of a per developer license is a bit confusing and it would be far easier if it were a per site or per product license.

[SeaSharp2]

The standard answer to all questions of this sort is email licensing@extjs.com


I have to say that the entire idea of a per developer license is a bit confusing and it would be far easier if it were a per site or per product license.
Nooo don't go there, site or product licences tend to inflate overall licence payments. Developer seat licences are very common in the industry.

Have you read through the Team or Workgroup licence sections? As for assigning copyright to the customer is this not best left to the end of the development cycle after full payment by the customer following delivery and installation?

[marcov]

The standard answer to all questions of this sort is email licensing@extjs.com



If the questions are public it would help us all though to get the answers also posted posted in the forum. Why keep the answers private? Is it not in everybody's interest to understand the licensing issues and implications? I mean, everybody who intends to use extJS?

[tryanDLS]

@marcov

We suggest emailing your question because if your licensing questions are not answered by the existing license page, FAQ, or the multi-page license threads, they're probably not going to get a sufficient answer here either. If questions directed to the email address bring to light other questions that are general enough to be answered on the license page or license FAQ, those resources will be updated.

[mooball]

well I did email licensing before posting this - they took a long time to reply hence the post. Last night I got the reply.


Thank you for your interest in Ext JS. If your customers are the IP holder, they would need to purchase the license. Your customers would purchase a license that allows you to use ExtJS for development. The License holder would need to be the corporation. You as the contractor do not need to purchase anything. They would need to purchase a license for each developer using Ext JS on the project.

This does help me clarify who should purchase the license but it is somewhat impractical because we hire many staff, some on very short contracts (<1day) and any of them may work on the code. And our client will not necessarily know who or when people work on the code. So I cant see how we can easily track the licenses. This would mean that if I hire a person to work on the code but dont inform my client then they would be in breach of the license but not even know it.

Are the licenses 'tied' to specific staff or can they float between staff. If one of my staff leaves and I hire another will that license be effectively lost? That would effectively mean that my client will loose licenses based on my hiring/firing of staff which seems a be weird.

Perhaps a per site license may scare some off but in situations like this it would be much easier for all involved. Perhaps it could be an alternative option.

[mooball]

FYI This just in from licensing


We do not require a new license purchase in connection to retention. The same licenses can be used by the new resources that were hired to replace a position.

So that is a great help and good to know.

I really do see the only remaining issue as the fact that one company owns the licenses but another company manages the developers. This is not a big problem, just awkward.