How to explain to client that you can't give them some of the source
- by Bo
We have a number of AS/Flex components that we've built over time and improved upon. They've been turned into components so they can be reused in different projects and save us time. So you can think of them as part of an in-house framework of sorts.
We're now realizing that it doesn't make sense to release the source code for these components to the various clients as part of the project, because technically this code isn't really owned by the clients.
So my question
When a client comes to you, how do you explain to them that you can't give them the full source code for those components. The client doesn't understand the difference, he just expects you to give them all the code for the site that he paid you to do. He doesn't understand that this code has taken you a lot longer to write than what he's paying for his site. But since he doesn't understand, he would get turned off and thinks you're ripping him off or something.
How do you handle this situation? What do you tell clients upfront? Do you advertise it on your site from the very beginning? How do you handle their objections so they still hire you?
As a side question, how often do you give AS and Flex source code to your clients? In the case when the code doesn't have any in-house components that you reuse in several projects, and in the case when it does have in-house components.
