SAP is proud - and justifiably so - about the growth of its SAP Developer Network (SDN). But Viacom's recent threat to YouTube made me wonder who contributes - and what - to SDN. So, I dd a little checking on the SDN site.
SAP awards points for posts in SDN - 10 points for code samples, 6 for forum posts etc. It then tallies them by contributor. So, I ran a query on the top 10 firms which contributed to SDN from Jan 1, 2006 to today - 8 of the 10 are outsourcers and systems integrators. Wipro leads with a whopping 126,000 points.
I had seen this in marketing pitches of several outsourcers - "we are one of the leading contributors to SDN" - and I can see it is pretty formalized.
But ...just about every outsourcing contract I have seen has murky language on who owns intellectual property. Attorneys argue about this for hours on every deal I have seen. If consultants from these firms are posting sample code from client situations or writing these posts on client time (chance are pretty slim all this only gets done on weekends), how are those clients being compensated?
I realize it is for the common good, but certain SAP customers are likely bearing the brunt of the contributions. A fair way would be for SAP and outsourcers to kick back to client sites where the contributing consultant is currently placed, an amount in line with the post point (or provide future billing hour credit). But before any thing is posted, I think clients should have the right to approve any unique code or work arounds that may have been developed at their site.
My personal vision for SDN is where SAP starts to leverage this community for more routine bug fixes and patches and even other maintenance of older releases, and then cuts its annual maintenance charge to clients. Then customers would truly benefit from the community.
What do my readers think? Any IP Attorneys with a POV?
