Re: CDNs should pay eyeball networks, too.

[William Herrin <bill () herrin us>]

On 5/1/12, Mike Hale <eyeronic.design () gmail com> wrote:
> "A customer pays you to build a piece of software by the hour. Another
> comes along and asks for the same software. You bill both for each
> hour. Double billing. Unethical. Wrong.
> [...]
> Neither of these is unethical or wrong in any way.  What are you
> supposed to do, write software from scratch every time? That's just
> silly.

Hi Mike,

If one of the customers happens to be the U.S. Government, it's not
only unethical it's a crime. It's usually a felony. You can do time.
The product was man hours. You've sold them once. You can't sell them
again.

The customers can agree to share the cost up front. But then you're
not billing the same hours twice, you're billing half an hour to one
customer and half to another. When you finish the software you can
sell the software to a second customer. But you *may not* tie your
price to the hours used to produce it for the first.

Regards,
Bill Herrin



-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin () dirtside com  bill () herrin us
3005 Crane Dr. ...................... Web: <http://bill.herrin.us/>
Falls Church, VA 22042-3004