[ale] New website for H1B [Slightly OT]

[F. Grant Robertson]

> Further, I worked with one US programmer that had charged $5-7000 for a golf 
> web site, and then felt he was owed another $10,000 in the event the client 
> wanted "ownership" of the code and graphics. He went on to say that the code 
> he had written for me was owned by him and that I could not sell the code 
> even though we had no written/verbal agreement to support it. 

 This is what contracts are for.. ownership of the code should be established before the code is written, not after. There is an old expression that goes, failure to plan is planning to fail. This is the sort of stuff that lawsuits are made of and, there has been at least one good thread on slashdot about this very thing in the last 6 or 8 months. You wouldn't go to a car lot and drive away in a new car before knowing for sure whether you are leasing or buying so, why should code be any different?

 I have certainly worked on projects that went either way. I have written code for people that was understood up front to be their property at project end and, I've worked agreements with customers that allowed them a reduced price for a project in exchange for my retained ownership of the code. Using a customer to fund a project can be a very good way to work, as long as all parties involved know what they are getting into in the first place.

>Until the US programmers drop the attitude that they are "steak" and offshore 
>as "meatloaf" (like Grant implied yesterday) the work will go offshore. 

 Let me make this _perfectly_ clear.  I _never_ said that offshore programmers were meatloaf and domestic programmers steak.. this is a gross misrepresentation of what I wrote.

 I've worked with many domestic and foreign programmers that ran the gamut between the two.  The point I was making yesterday was, if you want a programer that is going to code like a $75/hr programmer, don't go shopping for someone whos book rate is $20/hr and expect the same results.  

I am steak,
-Grant

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