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Comment by stuckkeys | Hacker News Reader

Do not do free work for "testimonials" rather do it for a discount. I do not give sh-t who it is, I am not devoting my time for free to anyone. Your sidekick should be ChatGPT or any AI assistance you can get your hands on (if you are starting solo) It will help you tremendously. Do not be scared to reach out to organization. Buy some add space on google and target regions. You are going to kill it. I believe in you (random internet stranger). Good luck.

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> Your sidekick should be ChatGPT or any AI assistance you can get your hands on (if you are starting solo) It will help you tremendously.

Copilot has been found to spit out copies of code it was trained on. You don't want to violate your contract with client, nor expose client to IP theft or GPL taint.

Ignoring technicalities, legalities, ethicalities etc. How would anyone ever find out, assuming their product is closed source?

Whistleblowing or audits, but the chance of that might depend on the client(s).

In response, I just thought of a potentially very lucrative startup. :)

Please don't ...

We already offer this as part of code auditing services in some regulated industries.

There is no problem with your client having GPL code if the code is not going to be published. As far as I know, GPL and GPL2 should be totally ok. The rights to the codebase can also be transferred but the GPL parts would retain the same license. So the new owner would have to publish it under GPL if he publishes the code and so on.

But proprietary code is the problem in the equation. They are not GPL and any code that gets bits of such proprietary code would be in violation of the copyright...

Not only will I not do pro-bono work, but getting paid in full and on time is a challenge. Even good clients can suddenly ghost you and forget to pay up.

Don't forget the larger companies who'll try to negotiate Net 90, one month in arrears, in which they'd still probably feel they had another 2 weeks of wiggle room. Companies try that. With me it ends up Net 30 as usual when we edit the service agreement, but lordy do they TRY that.

Which is why you need airtight service agreements, and then the willingness to follow up on them. Obligatory video, "Fuck You, Pay Me": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U]

I only ever had two customers (out of > 200) not pay in about 15 years. One got a lawyer letter and paid up. The other (new customer, and one I was warned to be wary of) I actually dragged to district court to receive a judgement. They then still wouldn't pay. I figured there was no one there I'd ever see again in my career... so I sent the sheriff. They wired payment within hours.

This is brilliant!! Thank you for sharing.

I had no idea who this guy is, and the talk series. How much field-relevant brilliant content am I missing?

This is legendary. Will have to watch the video tonight. Thank you.

Haha that's really nice thanks for the advice.

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