91–100 of 103 posts
However, like others have mentioned, its highly likely there is nothing there of value - so you there is a pretty good chance you will have to write it off.
I have heard of similar things happening to this - commonly when the development is done in SE asia (have heard of several cases in the Philippines of this exact thing happening, interestingly).
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$2500 for 50 hours of work works out to $50 p/hour. I don't know what the fair market rate is for freelance client side app dev, but that sounds a bit low. Most web designers I know bill higher than that. For $50 an hour I'd either expect the developer to be really junior, or experienced but totally unaware of their own value. Also, I agree that providing a percentage of the possible profits is not a very good motiva…
Offtopic but seriously? $50/hr is low? I've had people tell me that my rate is too high when i was charging $20/hr. I find that a lot of people treat freelancers with a lot of prejudice because of their geographical location.. To the OP. The programmer is black-mailing you. That never ends well. If you can, just scratch the project and start over.
To answer your question, Java is very easy to reverse engineer. Google for a decompiler. Several years ago I would get an almost perfect copy of the original source, with the proper variable names, etc. The only thing missing were comments :) The legality of you reverse engineering the software is a different matter. But if you have paid the $2500 in question, then you own it.
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I paid him more than 2000 dollars of the fee already unfortunately. I've learnt a lot from this, specifically that even really good coders (or any professional) can be very good at what they do but still be completely unreasonable and willing to screw you.
He's not a really good coder, really good programmers don't work for peanuts. Good programmers in America make anywhere from 6k to 10k a month, what exactly do you think you're going to get for 2k? For the price you're offering, you won't find any good programmers that'll work for you, you'll only find hacks who think they can and are more than willing to take your money while learning. If you think you can spend 2k…
okay, first, you can't use html in an hn post for formatting. you should go back and add two-return-key paragraph breaks, so your post will be readable. second, getting someone to "reverse engineer" an existing app is a very bad idea. you're already in a bad situation, that would make it even worse. assuming you find someone to do this, they are going to be morally questionable. i, for one, would never agree to do su…
Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm not from California or even the US, so I wasn't sure about my legal options here. But I've done a little reading and the advice here has helped a lot. It's amazing how solitary you can feel doing this sort of thing! Thanks to all.
I've hired a coder to create me a desktop app using JAVA swing that I planned to sell. You might be asking for advice in the wrong place. If you want to make money selling desktop apps, the advice you'll likely get from this crowd is "learn how to do it yourself." Otherwise, give your coder at least a 50 percent interest in all of the proceeds from this app. Given what you tell us of his reaction, it sounds like you…
I'm sorry but this is bad advice. Coding isn't a special skill that can't/shouldn't be hired. He hired a guy to write code. That guy seems to be jerking him around. The way forward should be to dump the guy and get someone else. There are a lot of software engineers out there. Reneging on a deal isn't ok just because you know Java and your client doesn't.
Give up and start over with someone else. $2500 for 2 months of work comes out to 8 dollars an hour. This isn't a good wage for a programmer anywhere and should have been your first hint that this wasn't going to work out.
You're very wrong about this. I ran an outsource programming company in the Philippines for years, and $8 per hour is far higher than the highest rates I ever paid my best programmers.
Try living in a third world country some time, and get used to the labor rates they expect, before you make blanket statements about what's a good rate "anywhere".
There are literally thousands of qualified programmers in third world countries who would die for a chance to earn $8 per hour. Many of them are lucky to earn $8 a day ...
Thanks for all the advice guys. I'm not from California or even the US, so I wasn't sure about my legal options here. But I've done a little reading and the advice here has helped a lot. It's amazing how solitary you can feel doing this sort of thing! Thanks to all.
What jurisdiction are you in? That might help people give you better advice about legal options.
Next time around, write the contract the way you want it to read, and account for failures. Make certain everything is in writing, even if there is a deviation agreed upon by both parties. And above all, get what you paid for in increments and never pay in full before the project is done.
As a developer, I respect the 50/50 plan as well as the hourly one. 50% up front to cover development costs, 50% at the end to ensure I finish. Works like a charm.