Extensions and Partner Changing

JDVyska

I try to keep up with the amazing blogs out there talking extensions, but maybe I've missed a good one.

Is anyone talking about the long-term support implications of Extensions for customers who change partners?

I was thinking about this as I was working on an upgrade where the customer had old customizations we now have had to take over (the former partner is gone entirely, out of business).

With Extensions, the customer doesn't have the source code. When an upgrade comes two years later, and they have a new partner, how are we supposed to deal with this if the partner is gone? Rewrite it from scratch?

What if the partner is still in business but refuses to give a copy of a newer version? What's the legal situation there?

AK

The customer can create his own legal situation by stating in the contract that all sources belong to him and have to be delivered along with the extensions. Since NAV partners have always been delivering the source, I don't think many of them would have a problem with that.

JDVyska

Based on experience, I have had to recover many customers from bad partners that would not have known they should demand source code when they bought solutions. I don't know that legal remedies are sufficient (particularly in the "partner is gone" scenario)

But I don't know what other options are even possible. I am comparing this to customizations done today in the custom object range, which as a partner, we have full access to.

AK

We are talking about NAV, right? Then every single one of the customers you had to recover already had the source code, no matter if they knew it or not. Just because NAV works that way. And read again what I wrote; if the contract states that the source has to be delivered at the same time as the extension, it doesn't matter if the supplier will go out of business later.

Slawek_Guzek

@AK but the whole point of the extensions is an app in the AppStore. 'A thin layer of IP on the top of standdard NAV'. For vendors it is supposed to be fire, forget, see money stream coming solution. Cheap app for millions = minimum or no real support.

You don't download source code and you don't compile it yourself into an extension, you load the made-ready app.

@JDVyska has a very valid point here - legal remedy works if 1) you can afford it, money and time wise, 2) the company is within a reach of your jurisdiction.

EvR

If you have an extension made as customizations just for you, then ask for the source code.
If we're talking about appsource market extensions, then tough luck if the vendor goes out of business. You purchased the right to use the software and you don't own the code base. When you purchase Windows, you purchase a right to use it. Not the right to the source in case Microsoft goes bust.