Intellectual Property question

I have been asked to prepare a feasibility study for an upgrade to a
VB app that uses a SQL server db.

The application is thin client, with about 100 sites connecting via
terminal services. 99% of the processing and business logic is done
using stored procedures.

The application is a highly configured version of an off-the-shelf
product.

The company would like me to quote for redesigning the front end, but
for this to interface to the existing db structure. However, the
original developer regards the database structure, particularly the
stored procedures, as her intellectual property.

Anyone have any idea how I (and the company who have asked me to do
the work) stand legally? Obviously I don't want to get lawyers
involved unless absolutely necessary (for example, if we clearly don't
have a leg to stand on, then there's no point in paying some shyster
300 an hour to tell me what I already know.)

TIA

EdwardIANAL.

What does the contract with the original developer say? Usually you would
expect a software development contract to spell out the IP rights. In my
experience, in the UK, the rights are typically left with the company
developing the software unless the client company requires otherwise.

--
David Portas
----
Please reply only to the newsgroup
--|||"David Portas" <REMOVE_BEFORE_REPLYING_dportas@.acm.org> wrote in message
news:39-dnXc7sJhTgFaiRVn-sA@.giganews.com...
> IANAL.
> What does the contract with the original developer say? Usually you would
> expect a software development contract to spell out the IP rights. In my
> experience, in the UK, the rights are typically left with the company
> developing the software unless the client company requires otherwise.

I concur. When I do similar work my contracts ALWAYS state the
obvious...either that all resultant work is the property of the customer or
that the software is provided with license TO the customer.

My advice to you would be to higher that 'shyster' to review the contracts,
before you or your customer end up in a lawsuit.

--
BV.
WebPorgmaster - www.IHeartMyPond.com
Work at Home, Save the Environment - www.amothersdream.com

Intel Xeon Processor Vs. INTEL Pentium III

Hi ,
I would like to know if some have experience with upgrade INTEL CPU on SQL 2000 DB server .

I have SQL 2000 2* 1233 INTEL Pentium III CPU with 4 GB RAM .

The server main task is log processing from temporary table to Fact table.

I would like to upgrade the CPU to Intel Xeon Processor 1MB cache ~2.4 GHz .

Intel report on ~ 100 performance improvement.

Can someone let me know from his CPU experience what should I expect?It depends. You will have to run some performance monitors on your current box, to see if it is getting bogged down by a lack of CPU. If it is, then yes, the faster CPU could help. If you are more bogged down by disk access, you will see very little performance increase with the new CPUs.

For example, suppose a process takes 10ms of cpu time, and 100ms of disk I/O time. The whole process takes 110 ms. If you get a processor that runs twice as fast, you will end up with a process that runs in 105 ms. Just under a 5% increase in performance.

In general, if your CPU is staying up around 70 - 80%, I would go with the CPU upgrade. If it is consistently less than that, I would not bother.|||Thanks !,
Thank , I have peeks of ~ 20 minute each hour of ~ 80-100% CPU but , I am afraid that it is caused by the SQL server processing (lock management locks for example or other ) so any better CPU will not help ??