I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project • Hacker News Board

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#141

Post by jiveturkey » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #81

Don’t understand why someone would throw away their integrity by doing this. When a client refuses to pay, the standard procedure is to take them to court and then make them pay what is owed + attorney fees. Instead, this developer has put himself on industry blacklists by doing this. No way he’ll be trusted with sensitive projects. Don’t do this.

I don't agree with that assessment, but I do wonder why mention the client or client non-payment at all. If he wants to bother to mention the breach of contract, he should go all in and publish the client's name. Otherwise, just publish it as code written on his own time. (Which it was, at the end.)

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#142

Post by plorkyeran » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

qafy wrote: post #123

Animats wrote: post #41

This thing wants the password for your bank account? WTF? That's way more than it needs. Enough info to authorize an ACH transfer, maybe. But the login password for your bank account? No way. That voids Bank of America's security guarantee.[1] If you provide info for an ACH transfer, and the other party abuses that info, it's reversible. If you provide login info and the other party abuses that info, it's not. [1] ht…

If you aren't comfortable with that you better not use any fintech apps like Cash App, Venmo, Wealthfront, Robinhood, any Intuit products, etc. These services use Plaid (like this app does) or similar APIs like Quovo, Yodlee, etc. Even financial institutions themselves like Citi Bank, American Express, Chime, PayPal, etc use these APIs to link your accounts. And to be clear, the app itself never has access to your cr…

I in fact don't use any of those apps, partially because of that.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#143

Post by pysxul » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:57 PM UTC

robot wrote: post #140

Never thought about building an app with Plaid, cool. It's also a good example to play with react native.

This might affect your decision: "Plaid Deletes GitHub Issue Exposing Imitation of Bank Login UIs"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20133806

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#144

Post by jiveturkey » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 5:58 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #19

vzaliva wrote: post #2

INAL but even if you did not get paid does not automatically means the result of work for hire belongs to you. If you are a contractor this is a smart thing to explicitly stipulate in the contract.

Also NAL, but my understanding is that if no "consideration" (something of value) changes hands, the contract is null and void. This is why people sell things for $1 instead of giving them away, or why executives take $1 salaries instead of working for free. Thus, if he really never received anything of value for the work, it's as if the contract never happened, and ownership of the IP remains with the person who cre…

My NAL understanding is it doesn't matter if payment actually took place (otherwise how to enforce any normal sale transaction?), it's just whether an agreement that included consideration was in place.

ie, the fact that the contract included consideration makes the contract valid.

however if one side is in breach i think it's fair for the other side to go ahead and breach their responsibility also. in a case like this, anyway.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#145

Post by nicoburns » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:02 PM UTC

kwhitefoot wrote: post #126

davedx wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*will solve it with laws. I'm working with a fintech company in Germany at the moment that asks users for their internet banking credentials. Apparently it's quite common in Germany.

That's very strange. Here in Norway we have a unified login system for banks and state services that lets you set up the login with your own bank then any other service that needs you to log in will delegate the login process to your bank and never needs any of your details except for your personnummer (social security number in US/UK I suppose). Then your bank either asks for a code from a one time pad or sends a me…

(The UK equivalent of a social security number is a National Insurance number. But this is generally only used for tax, and not for authentication)

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#146

Post by leke » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:04 PM UTC

trillcyborg wrote: post #37

Hey guys its cool to see that you like my project. Unfortunately these types of things happen to independent contractors often and theres not a whole lot you can do about it but learn from mistakes. I used some awesome tech for the first time in this one like react-native-web which is now in Expo and react-spring for those sexy animations. Im happy for any of you guys to use this project as a boilerplate, learn some…

What did you learn from this mistake?

Whose idea was it to use react-native-web?

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#147

Post by novaleaf » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #81

Don’t understand why someone would throw away their integrity by doing this. When a client refuses to pay, the standard procedure is to take them to court and then make them pay what is owed + attorney fees. Instead, this developer has put himself on industry blacklists by doing this. No way he’ll be trusted with sensitive projects. Don’t do this.

I'm in a kind of similar situation in that Msft owes me aprox $7k in royalties but they lost track of it internally. I've been pinging them every 6 months about this for the last 4 years, hoping to avoid litigation.

in the usa, you can't expect a lawyer to take a case without paying their fees up front. So $5000+ for any case.

Assuming you win, you are still looking at years before you might actually get paid (if ever).

That, plus a huge time and cognitive investment, means i'ts not surprising he took this route.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#148

Post by facorreia » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:08 PM UTC

fj39dkf wrote: post #133

mdpopescu wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? If you believe in Imaginary Property, you own the copyright to your code until you get paid. He won't be trusted with sensitive projects that he doesn't get paid for .

Do you mean intellectual property? It would be defined in the contract, but usually the contractors never own the copyright to code written for other people. Anyway, I agree with the other comments that this is unprofessional and immature. We have a civil court system to deal with these kind of issues.

Was the jurisdiction of the contract mentioned?

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#149

Post by Animats » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:15 PM UTC

plorkyeran wrote: post #142

qafy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you aren't comfortable with that you better not use any fintech apps like Cash App, Venmo, Wealthfront, Robinhood, any Intuit products, etc. These services use Plaid (like this app does) or similar APIs like Quovo, Yodlee, etc. Even financial institutions themselves like Citi Bank, American Express, Chime, PayPal, etc use these APIs to link your accounts. And to be clear, the app itself never has access to your cr…

I in fact don't use any of those apps, partially because of that.

I don't, either. Bank bill pay handles most outgoing payments, and that comes with good guarantees. Everything else is on a credit card. I can get data out of the bank in spreadsheet format if it needs to go into some analysis program. Everything is online, but doesn't involve flaky third parties.

Re: I didn't get paid, so I open-sourced my client’s project

#150

Post by rsanek » Sat, Jun 08, 2019, 6:16 PM UTC

novaleaf wrote: post #147

xwdv wrote: post #81

Don’t understand why someone would throw away their integrity by doing this. When a client refuses to pay, the standard procedure is to take them to court and then make them pay what is owed + attorney fees. Instead, this developer has put himself on industry blacklists by doing this. No way he’ll be trusted with sensitive projects. Don’t do this.

I'm in a kind of similar situation in that Msft owes me aprox $7k in royalties but they lost track of it internally. I've been pinging them every 6 months about this for the last 4 years, hoping to avoid litigation. in the usa, you can't expect a lawyer to take a case without paying their fees up front. So $5000+ for any case. Assuming you win, you are still looking at years before you might actually get paid (if eve…

Have you considered small claims court? They have low filing fees and typically disallow lawyers.