

Ask HN: client terminated contract, should I remove unpaid-for commits? - frankypoo

Hey HN, wondering your freelancing two cents. I signed a client's contract which basically said "We provide work orders (PivotalTracker sprints), you code. If you finish, we pay; if not, we don't pay." Fair enough. Hacked a few work orders, got paid. Finally there was one work order with a grizzly ticket well beyond the week's allocated hours. I suggested we break it up, or ice-box it. The client said no and insisted it be completed before they accept the work order. I chugged and chugged on this one ticket, until finally (as per the work order's due date) the contract was terminated.<p>Now, they have all my commits for that work order leading up to the final ticket (about $700 of my time). A lot of work down the drain. My question is, seeing as the whole shebang is either accepted or rejected (not individual tickets), should I remove all my commits for that work order, since I'm not being paid for them? A simple `git rebase -i ... git push --force` would do. I'm sure someone has a local clone and could figure it out (after some cursing). Possibly enough to leverage a payout on my work, otherwise (since that's been addressed in the contract) they'll just deal with the lost work order as I am.<p>I don't mean to be malicious, I'm not trying to haxor their bases; I just don't want them to have my work for free. I've looked through the contract and there's nothing addressing redacted IP on failed work orders as far as I can tell. Thoughts? More trouble than it's worth?
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ecspike
I don't think it's worth it. Sometimes you have to cut your losses. I think it
might be more productive to tell your network not to work with this company.

Doing the un-commits without consulting a lawyer can get you branded as a
disgruntled employee and hurt future prospects in the best case scenario or
get you sued in the worst.

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frankypoo
Fair enough, I think you're right.

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1simonsayz
If you have a copy of the email saying that you request payment as directed in
contract and they refuse, erase your commit. I don't see why they should have
your work. After you remove your code, just send a quick email saying, code
still available upon reception of payment.

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trevelyan
I don't see what's wrong with it, especially since you'd just be resetting the
code base to its original state for the convenience of the next programmer.

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Spoom
In the future you may want to negotiate smaller milestones or an hourly rate.

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aaronbrethorst
Ask your attorney.

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kylemaxwell
This is the right answer. "I don't see anything in the contract" is a terrible
assumption for Internet comments, even if it frequently serves as par for the
course.

