As our values stand, we want to rely on standard, portable solutions whenever possible.To link those solutions together, as well as to add elements that they might miss, we develop our own code.
We intend to ultimately have a few number of libraries implementing the principal functionalities that we often encounter. By combining those, and the standard solutions availlable, we plan to be able to make custom solutions fastly and efficiently.
Exemple of our capabilities will also be packaged to allow us to have easy to use demo programs.
Since now, most of our customers have asked to retain the copyright of the code that we developed for them. This hasn’t permitted to extend our libraries as we would have liked to. However, our understanding of the problems have grown, allowing us to imagine better solutions, pick up the right tool more easily or finding an existing external library for the job.
Although we can understand that customers want to retain their copyrights, we’d like to propose them another model.
By accepting a shared property of the code base, either with the whole internet, or just with Cipher Brain, the customer gains some advantages. Indeed, whenever somebody reuses his code, he might find bugs, correct them, and let the customer know about this defects. He might also bring some enhancement, that the customer won’t have to pay for.
When the code is shared with the whole internet, licences like the GNU licence, the Apache license, of BSD-like licences, to name just a few, can be used. Numerous projects have started as a company project, to be finally adopted by a much larger community. Using those licences, you’ll have much more chances for somebody to pick up part of your code, enhancing it, and giving the enhancements to you.
If the software developed is not just a tool for you, but touches really your core business, and is one of the elements that distinguishes you from your competition, Cipher Brain can understand that you don’t want to share it with the world at large, including your competitor(s). We can then draft together a licence such that this code can be reused in other non-competing projects. Note that if your only difference with competition is a piece of software, you should be aware that your leading edge might not last very long.
You don’t succeed because you have the tools, but because you know how to master them.