Your Developer Controls Your Code, Hosting or Passwords

Start by working out exactly what you control and what you do not: the domain name, the hosting account, the database, the source code and the administrator passwords. Then ask for each item in writing, calmly, before the relationship breaks down further. What you can recover on your own, such as a domain registered in your name or a database you can back up, you secure first. If the code itself cannot be recovered, the system can be rebuilt from the running application and its data. Questions of legal ownership are for your attorney.

Signs this is your problem

• You asked for your code or passwords and were refused or ignored.
• The hosting or domain is in the developer’s name.
• You are being asked to pay to get your own system released.
• You want to change developers and fear what happens when you say so.
• You do not know where your own data is stored.

The five things to take stock of

• The domain name. Look up who it is registered to. If it is in the company’s name, you can regain control through the registrar even if the developer set it up.
• The hosting account. Whose name and whose credit card is on it? Whoever the hosting company recognizes as the account owner controls the server.
• The database. Where is it, and can anyone on your side take a backup? Your data is the part that cannot be recreated.
• The source code. Do you have a copy, or access to the repository where it is kept?
• Administrator passwords. For the application itself, for email, and for any connected services such as payment processing.

What to do, in order

• Stay on working terms if you can. A cooperative handover is quicker and cheaper than any alternative.
• Find your agreement. Any contract, proposal or email that says who owns the work. Show it to your attorney if ownership is disputed.
• Ask in writing for specific things. A copy of the current source code, a database backup, and transfer of each account, by a stated date.
• Secure what you can reach. Take your own backup of the data. Move the domain into an account the company controls.
• Do not cut off access in anger. If the developer is the only person who can keep the system running, locking them out before you have copies can stop your business.
• Change passwords once you hold everything. Then, and not before.

If you cannot get the code

You still have options. The running application shows what the system does. The database holds your data and reveals how the system is organized. For some technologies the code can be recovered from the installed program. Otherwise the application is rebuilt, and this time the code, the accounts and the passwords belong to your company from the first day. See what to do when the source code is lost.

How to make sure it never happens again

• Domains and hosting accounts are registered to the company and paid by the company.
• Source code lives in a repository the company owns, with more than one person able to reach it.
• Administrator passwords are held by the business, not by one outside person.
• Your development agreement states that you receive the code.

How Keene Systems handles it

1. We go through what you control and what you do not. Item by item.
2. We tell you exactly what to ask for. In terms a developer cannot misunderstand.
3. We secure the data and whatever else is reachable. Before anything is changed.
4. We take over or rebuild the system. With everything held in your company’s name.

The next step is a short, no-pressure conversation. Book a call with Lance Keene or use the form on this page.