Silicon Goblin Technologies estimate, development and billing policies

This document explains the general business practices of Silicon Goblin Technologies, written in plain Englisn non-legalese.

Preamble

Silicon Goblin Technologies (SGT) is a small business with the goal of providing the very highest-quality technical work to clients, and founded on the philosophy of sharing knowledge and power with clients rather than witholding it. Passion for excellence and fascination with computer technologies are the motivations for our work; we do it because we love it.

The policies outlined below were written by the owner and programmer of SGT, not by a lawyer. SGT has no interest in retaining an expensive legal staff to do battle with other lawyers in the high-stakes and over-litigous world of business law; we prefer to operate in the world of old-fashioned common sense, fairness and decency. We enjoy working with our clients and helping them acheive their aims. The point at which we have to engage lawyers to fight with clients is the point at which we hang it up and go back to working for someone else.

We'll work hard for you. We'll keep our costs competitive. We believe in the simple principles of hard work, openness and fairness. We trust that if you find our services to be a good value and our business practices admirable, you'll speak well of us. And if, for any reason, you don't, you'll send us a nasty letter (or email) so we can make amends.

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Estimates

Every effort is made to give accurate estimates for hourly jobs; indeed, SGT stakes its reputation on timely and efficient production of code, word-of-mouth recommendations from satisfied clients, and repeat customers. Software development will never be a perfected art, however, and occasionally jobs run over estimates despite studied efforts at accuracy. (Sometimes they run under, too.) SGT will notify clients immediately should it become apparent during development that an estimate is in danger of running over. Every effort will be made to keep schedules on-time and on-budget; clearly, nothing is more central to the track record of a successful company that relies on customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Clients receive one hour of free consultation per project to assist in the formation of a work specification. SGT makes every effort to help the client in the speedy creation of a precise, detailed, and accurate estimate; however, the free consultation cannot extend beyond one hour of planning. Clients are asked to recognize that we are happy to help them clarify their aims and needs, but that we need to eat, too, and that time spent helping clients produce a scope of work is billed at normal rates after the first hour.

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Scope of Work Documents

Detailed planning is a too-often-overlooked preparatory phase of contract work. Many people share a popular misconception that the bulk of a programming job is programming; in fact, programming time is typically only about 30% of a complete project.

Before either an hourly-rate-based estimate or a project-based quote can be given for a body of work, a detailed document called the "Scope of Work" must be produced that details all of the work to be performed. The production and accuracy of this document is normally the client's responsibility.

SGT is available to assist in the production of a Scope of Work document for clients that need assistance clarifying their needs and blueprinting the technical specifications for their projects. This involves a Scope of Work Agreement, which is billed at normal hourly rates (regardless of whether the projected work to be performed will be done on an hourly or project basis). A small business like SGT generally has the option of either raising hourly rates by a substsantial margin to compensate for often-extensive unpaid client-assisting preparation work, or setting costs at as low a rate as possible across the board. We choose the latter.

The first hour of a Scope of Work Agreement is free. Very simple Scope of Work documents can sometimes be created within this time frame, and it is therefore conceivable that a simple Scope of Work document can cost the client nothing. However, these documents can also be extremely lengthy and complex, requiring a great degree of technical knowledge and expertise to create, and this can in fact be a significant portion of a complete project budget.

Clients who present a finished Scope of Work document at the beginning of a project can save money if the document is complete and accurate. If the document is deemed by SGT to be insufficiently precise or unfinished, specific recommendations will be made at no charge.

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Renegotiation

If the client wishes to make alterations to the work specification once work has begun, SGT will make every effort to accomodate the changes requested. This usually involves the existing specification being stopped, the billable amount reflecting the work done to date being paid, and a new specification being written and agreed upon. Although alterations to established plans are sometimes inevitable, SGT encourages the careful planning and development of work specifications, as mid-stream changes usually result in delays and higher costs to the client.

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Billing

In the effort to serve customers fairly and honestly, hourly rates are billed in tenths of an hour increments (as opposed to half-hourly or hourly). Exact times accrue until the end of the billing period, when the only rounding takes place. This ensures that the invoice for the billing period reflects the actual amount of time worked to within six minutes, as accurate as it is practical to be. Common practices of rounding multiple work sessions up to the nearest hour can result in customers paying for many hours of time not actually spent working. SGT's billing is methodical and precise; each invoice contains a detailed breakdown of everything done in each session.

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Delivery

Delivery of programming and documentation is done physically and electronically. Complete archives of all files and project data are sent to the client via whichever internet-based method is preferred (email or ftp upload being the most common; installation is also available where applicable, requested and budgeted). Clients may request a Macintosh- or ISO9660-formatted CD of the project work at no additional charge. Printed archives may be requested at the cost of printing, shipping and handling.

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Payment

As Silicon Goblin Technologies is (and plans to remain) a small business, timely payment is essential upon completion of the project or the meeting of agreed-upon milestones. Cashflow interruptions (late payments) usually result in work interruptions.

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Post-project

Any bugs in SGT-written code discovered within 120 days of the completion of the project will be fixed at no charge. Bugs discovered after that time will be fixed at the lowest chargable rate. It should be stressed that testing the work is the client's responsibility, unless other arrangements have been made.

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Open-source code

SGT relies heavily on many open-source products without which it would be impossible to do the level of work we do. Examples include the Linux kernel and utilities, Emacs, Apache, Gimp, Perl, Netscape, and countless modules and code fragments written by talented authors around the world. We contribute in our small way by releasing some of the useful tools we develop for our work as open-source, including stc, news_writer, and link_checker, for whomever may wish to use them.

In the world of open-source program code, the thinking is that value is contained in ideas and skills, not tools. In other words, tools should be shared whenever possible - it is their useage that should be proprietary. To use a practical example, the Apache web server is free. The tool which does the work of distributing web pages is needed by many and so it is shared. The web pages themselves, and the skill involved in crafting them, are and should be proprietary.

SGT Clients, who are beneficiaries of the open-source movement, are encouraged to consider whether any tools developed for needs of theirs by SGT might be useful to others, and if so, whether they would be willing to allow such tools to be released as open-source (with permanent public credit given them in the source, so that all users can see who allowed its release and shared use) into the pool of shared tools that make everybody's work easier. There is certainly no requirement that they do so. However, well-designed tools implement a clean separation of code and data. The tool simply manipulates the data. The data can remain private. SGT likes to give back to the community that supports it whenever possible.

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