Giving developer access to proprietary code

[e0163d57]

I am hiring a developer and want to understand how the following works

1- Developer will have access to code that has been written for me in the past. How am I protected from him copying, repacking, sharing etc this code? What about general ideas on how code works (idea of the product, structure of the code, etc) ?

2- Can you confirm that by ToS all rights to code delivered by developer is intended to be fully transferred to the client?

[prestonhunter · Accepted solution]

re: "Can you confirm that by ToS all rights to code delivered by developer is intended to be fully transferred to the client?"

Yes.

That is part of Upwork's default contract language.

https://www.upwork.com/legal#optional-service-contract-terms

[prestonhunter]

re: "Developer will have access to code that has been written for me in the past. How am I protected from him copying, repacking, sharing etc. this code? What about general ideas on how code works (idea of the product, structure of the code, etc)?"

Upwork does not offer source code protection services.

Upwork's default contract language stipulates that your intellectual property belongs to you and freelancers won't abuse it (copying, repacking, sharing, etc.). As long as the Upwork freelancers you hire are honorable and honest, this won't be a problem. Most (not all) Upwork freelancers are indeed honorable and honest.

You are protected primarily because the freelancers who work on Upwork are not interested in taking your source code or ideas. They are here to earn money by working for you.

Having said all that, I must emphasize that Upwork itself does NOT offer any sort of guarantees about the protection of your intellectual property and source code. When you hire a freelancer through Upwork, you have a contract with that freelancer. Upwork is not party to that contract.

You are also protected because you own the domain name that you are going to use to house your project, and you don't let anybody else control your domain name registry account.

If you want to investigate other ways that you can protect your source code, you can hire consultants to help you.

It certainly IS possible to set up infrastructue that modularizes a system in a way that developers can only work on their part, without having access to the complete body of source code. As a senior developer on projects, I routinely set up systems like that. The other developers do not have any access to the source code other than what they themselves create. They are able to create modules which plug into the greater whole.

(Note that I am simply pointing this out as a possibility. I am not available for hire through the Forum and I am not currently available to be hired by new clients. Many Upwork professionals are available who can help you with this topic.)

[e0163d57]

Thanks for all

[e0163d57]

Sorry saw your second answer afterwards