Tim Bradshaw  <tfb@aiai.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
+---------------
| I think there are some interesting cases in the middle.  For instance,
| if I'm a small company (a startup, say), and I want to sell my stuff
| to very large, serious people, then they're going to say `you aren't
| big enough: if something bad happens you'll just go bankrupt and walk
| away and we'll be left with broken software we can't maintain' (at
| least, that's what *I'd* say if I was a big serious person).  So maybe
| you want to make source available, or make some kind of promise to
| make source freely available if you do go down the tubes...
+---------------

This happens all the time, not only for software but also for hardware!
The magic word here is "escrow": The small vendor deposits archival
copies of their "source" (software, the build tools needed for it, hardware
schematics, Verilog source, PAL designs, everything) with a trusted-by-
both-sides 3rd-party escrow agent, who will release the source to the
customer if the vendor doesn't live up to certain conditions (e.g., doesn't
stay in business, doesn't keep manufacturing/selling/supporting the product,
whatever).

I worked for Digital Communications Assoc. in Atlanta many, many years ago
and when we were just starting out, several of our large customers required
us to do this for our whole product line. [No, we never defaulted, but if
we had, they would have been *somewhat* protected... maybe...]


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 8L-855		rpw3@sgi.com
Applied Networking		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
Silicon Graphics, Inc.		Phone: 650-933-1673
2011 N. Shoreline Blvd.		FAX: 650-964-0811
Mountain View, CA  94043	PP-ASEL-IA