

Ask HN: Should we be concerned? Potential partner uses proprietary framework. - splitpop

I'm an intern at a growing, local web development firm. I've worked with this startup for one year. Late last year, I partnered with a group of students to form a business. Over the past five months, we've worked to develop a solid business model, talked with potential customers, and now we're ready to start software development.<p>My boss expressed interest in a mutual partnership and we've begun moving in that direction (although, no written contracts have been signed by either party). If we form this partnership, our software will be written in a proprietary framework solely owned by this firm. We're wary to jump into this arrangement for several reasons:<p>1) We won't own all of the code. The codebase would be licensed to us by the firm in return for minimal equity (less than 5%) in the company.<p>2) The firm's framework has gone through several revisions over the past few years. The latest revision was a complete overhaul. Even though the firm has built some impressive web applications with the framework, we're concerned about the overall quality of this codebase.<p>Despite these concerns, there are some positive aspects to the arrangement. We'll have easy, cheap (read: free for now) access to existing hosting services. I have extensive experience with the framework and feel comfortable undertaking the software development of our project.<p>We're in an awkward situation, because saying "No, we're not interested" could damage our relationship with an otherwise very connected individual with many valuable contacts.<p>Are there any others out there that have encountered similar situations? For those that are ahead of us, what advice do you have?<p>EDIT: Formatting.
======
SandB0x
This sounds awful. One of the main considerations when picking _any_ kind of
framework is: What kind of community is there? If I run into a problem, how
likely is it that someone else has solved it first? Will it still be popular
in a few years? If you use say Rails or Django you can be pretty confident
about these things.

But a _proprietary framework_ that's been created by a group of students? In
PHP? <http://i.imgur.com/AHqEn.jpg> ? Unless there's something big you're not
telling us I wouldn't touch this with a bargepole.

Edit: Ah, so not created by students. But everything else stands - the whole
arrangement sounds like huge risk unless their framework does something
amazing.

~~~
gexla
What is a web framework (typically) but a router, some sort of MVC scheme and
other various libraries?

Hopefully it's modular, then I would just use whatever components I wanted and
leave the rest.

------
Travis
Being at the whim of another company potentially places you in a very
compromising position. I wouldn't do it.

It doesn't sound like there are any technological or product dev advantages to
using their framework. Even if that's not what you meant to say, I suspect
that it's true (unless they have build something as-yet-unheard-of in PHP,
which seems unlikely).

I would look for a polite way to decline the licensing deal. Tell him that you
want to develop it in a different language. It shouldn't be hard defending the
decision to move away from PHP.

At the same time as you say that, I would extend some sort of other offer to
your boss. If they are as important and influential as you believe, then it's
worth having them on board. However, I would want their compensation based on
their contributions, not something ancillary (like running the company that
owns the underlying framework). Chances are that he just wants to be involved
-- so offer him some compensation in exchange for networking on your behalf,
or serving on the board.

Again, if he's influential enough to warrant giving up 5% of the company, you
should compensate him directly for that. Especially considering the
alternative is super weird sounding -- licensing a proprietary framework (in
PHP, no less) from a company just to not offend this man. That could put you
under their thumb (even unintentionally -- what if they go out of business?)
without offering any value in return.

~~~
splitpop
"Being at the whim of another company potentially places you in a very
compromising position. I wouldn't do it."

This was one of my concerns that I did not elaborate on. Our growth could be
limited by the partnership.

"Chances are that he just wants to be involved -- so offer him some
compensation in exchange for networking on your behalf, or serving on the
board."

I suspect you're right on this account. This sounds like a reasonable offer.

~~~
Travis
It also allows you to incentivize his participation with compensation. If you
really want him to network for you, make his equity based on that.

I would also take it as a compliment. It sounds like he just wants a way to
participate.

------
arkitaip
"The codebase would be licensed to us by the firm in return for minimal equity
(less than 5%) in the company"

I've never heard of such an arrangement. What does licensed even mean?

~~~
splitpop
We would use the firm's framework to develop our product. We would not have
any ownership of the framework.

~~~
veb
What language?

~~~
splitpop
PHP

~~~
MattBearman
There are so many good, well supported and easy to use PHP frameworks out
there, I really can't see a good reason to take them up on this deal. A bit of
hosting isn't worth being locked in like that.

~~~
splitpop
We're not in it _just_ for the hosting, but for the networking and the advice.
The framework is an extension of and takes a lot of queues from Zend.

------
jdietrich
Don't walk, run.

