Guarding against corporate death (was: F# fsharp)

In article <[email protected]>,
    Jon Frisby <[email protected]>  writes:

> [...] There are evolutionary dead-ends in closed-source too.  Of course
> the difference is that an open source project doesn't necessarily die
> just because a particular corporation did -- but when a corporation dies
> (or gets out of a line of busine ss), its technology almost always dies
> (unless they spin it off into a new comp any of course).

If your company depends on a critical piece of middleware, one way you
can guard against your middleware supplier dying is to take out a
source code escrow agreement with the middleware company.  This
basically gives you a legal right to a copy of the source code for
the middleware, should the middleware company decide to stop
supporting it or go out of business.

For critical middleware pieces, a source code escrow agreement can be
a wise hedge against uncertainty.  When I worked at Parametric
Technology (makers of Pro/Engineer), we had an escrow agreement for
the Galaxy UI toolkit.  It turned out to be a good idea because the
makers of Galaxy did indeed go under and my employer got a copy of the
source.  Of course, you don't really want to be in the business of
maintaining your middleware, which is the whole reason you buy
middleware in the first place.  However, when the choice is owning it
yourself or switching, sometimes owning it is the easier path.
-- 
"The Direct3D Graphics Pipeline" -- DirectX 9 draft available for download
 <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com/the-direct3d-graphics-pipeline/>

      Legalize Adulthood! <http://legalizeadulthood.wordpress.com>
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