Freelance question - how to handle

[rh71]

I've been doing freelancing on the side and had been working with a guy who paid me hourly. I built the site from the ground up and it's on my host (they don't pay for it other than their domain renewal). No official contract or anything as it was for a friend of a friend. He has since left the project and the new guy is asking me straight up for the login so he can "update the site". I'm not even sure if he knows php (probably superficial changes anyway) and I haven't responded yet. What would you do in this case? Should he have full rights to it? Should I have it moved off my host, etc?

 

[Crusty]

IANAL but if there was never any contract in place then I'm not sure he has any claim to the source code, it's not like being an employee and writing code for your employer. I will say that if you do give them access to the host, don't be surprised if they ripoff the source code and host it themselves.

The way I look at it there are several options
1) Give them a copy of the source code and tell them to host it themselves, offering up consulting work to get it setup and working for them
2) Give them access to the source code on the server, but now you are on the hook for anything they do on your host
3) Charge them to make the code updates yourself and continue with some sort of formal maintenance contract

I personally would go with 1 or 3, depending on whether or not I wanted to continue working on the project.

 

[uclabachelor]

What would you do in this case?

I would tell the new guy to get written permission from original employer, or have the original employer call you so you can get written permission to give login access to new guy.

 

[sao123]

Offer to sell them the site, source code and all. But get it off your host, and have no further involvement.

Or tell them to go pound sand.

 

[beginner99]

Yeah would try to get rid of this project.

The important thing is to learn from it. Make proper contracts. And I would avoid making stuff for close friends.

 

[DaveSimmons]

> had been working with a guy who paid me hourly

Then that guy (or his company) owns the work, just like any other employer. If you aren't sure about the new guy then it does makes sense to confirm it's OK with the person or company that paid you. They also own the domain if it was set up for their use and they paid for it.

What they are not entitled to is free hosting, so it's perfectly OK to give them 10 - 30 days to move the pages off of your server and on to their own hosting. It's even OK to charge them for any work in transferring the site.

What's not OK is holding the site content for ransom. They paid you for the work.

 

[rh71]

thanks folks - they were ok with taking it over... there's a small outstanding balance so I'm waiting on that before I release anything. Without doing that, I'll probably never get it.