

Ask HN: Do i have to give technical support if i sell source code of my app? - homeromer

I have a very popular android app on the google play store. An OEM firm wants to buy this app's source code. We agreed on te price and now they have sent me a contract and they want my reviews about it. In the contract they say that i should provide technical support for them and their clients etc. I was wondering if this is the normal case or not. Also how can i find legal advice about this contract?
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zoowar
Without the contract we can only guess as to their intentions. Best to seek
out a lawyer to protect your interests and ensure they don't take advantage of
you.

Having said that, they seem to have pulled a fast one on you. They bundled the
cost of the code with the cost of support. Do you really want to support their
changes to their code? Feel free to counter with a support contract if you
wish to continue to be involved.

~~~
forgingahead
This. Do NOT take support as bundled into the cost-of-code contract. Have a
separate maintenance/support contract, and make sure you get paid enough to
deal with the hassle of on-going support for a product whose marketing you no
longer have control over.

I'd push for a high enough maintenance amount such that you can hire a few
people to help with the support so it's not all on you.

------
vitovito
Many years ago, I designed and ran a developer relations program. Companies
would license our tech for a quarter million dollars and up, sometimes
multiple times for multiple products. We used to hand it over with basically
no knowledge transfer or support at all, and I came in and changed all of
that.

1\. Do you _want_ to provide technical support? Often (but not always) there's
knowledge transfer: you spend hours or days or weeks helping them get it
building correctly and showing them your structure and explaining why you made
certain technical choices. Sometimes (but not always) there's a period after
that where you're available to answer questions (by some defined method and
for some defined amount of effort and possibly [but not always] for a defined
fee). Occasionally they won't have a staff at all, and want to buy it, rebrand
it, and have you do all the work; it's like a regular consulting job at that
point.

But, what do you _want_ to do?

2\. Talk to a lawyer. That's what they're _for._

