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My company outsourced one project to a consulting company. Now that project is almost over we are asking for a source code + database. It is a .NET based solution with SQL Server and repository is TFS. Their estimate to deliver this will take 2 days and cost approx $3000. I am angry because that is a blunt lie that proving source code will take 2 days. I have always used subversion and not sure about TFS but my guess is it will not take that many days to give us a source code and backup of database. I need to provide feedback to my manager.
Anyone with TFS experience want to give me your feedback if TFS is the complexity or it is just them trying to fleece more money ?
Edit:
After one phone call that estimate dropped to 6-8 hours.
Few more emails and phone calls and cost dropped to $0.
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf *
Maths is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
modified 18-Feb-16 23:22pm.
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It'll not take more than 1-2 hours to migrate from on-premise TFS to Microsoft-hosted TFS (VSTS, formerly VSO).
See Migrate team projects from on-premises TFS to Visual Studio Team Services[^]
Even if your DB is 300 - 400 GB in size, a backup shouldn't take more than 45 minutes. And then an overnight FedEx/UPS on a USB drive.
One guy could do all of this, TFS migration, DB backup, short drive to the nearest FedEx location in about 6-8 hours. Assuming 150/hr that'd be about $1200 max.
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This is what I am asking for
1. Check out source code from their repository ( Team Foundation Server ) and zip the folder and send that to us.
2. Create a database backup and send that or generate a script to create database tables and send that. Database size is hardly 2GB.
Zen and the art of software maintenance : rm -rf *
Maths is like love : a simple idea but it can get complicated.
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Ok, that's about 1-2 hours of work I'd think 
Maybe they have a strict agile environment, so there's probably two stand-up meetings involved here, an iteration manager, a second scrum master, an analyst, an in-room analyst, a tester, a data expert, an architect, and then the guy who actually does all this. That'd explain the $3,000.
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Nish Nishant wrote: Maybe they have a strict agile environment, so there's probably two stand-up meetings involved here, an iteration manager, a second scrum master, an analyst, an in-room analyst, a tester, a data expert, an architect, and then the guy who actually does all this
 hic!
Thank you Nish, I needed a good laugh this morning.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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I think it's a mistake for you to quote time and money here. There's no way you can tell him that without knowing a lot more about the app and all that's involved in it. See my response to him below.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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If you are paid to do a work, you do not own it. You paid for doing the work, the results are yours.
Bastard Programmer from Hell 
If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
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Agreed. Being a full time consultant/contractor I ALWAYS write into the contract that THEY own the code upon paying me. This includes releasing me from reliability.
However, from his question it doesn't sound like any of this is an issue.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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What does "own the code" mean? Can they sell the application to others?
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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If you're an independent and are hire to write an app for someone/some company, and you're NOT an employee of the company, then it's called a Work For Hire. Since you own the original work, like a book author or a painting's artist, you own it.
Unless you specifically tell them otherwise, YOU own the code and they cannot sell it, modifiy it, or give it away.
Now they can certainly try to sue you, so it's better to create a contract - to spell out exactly who owns what and for how long. I ALWAYS relinquish ownership for non-proprietary portions of the app once they pay me.
All of this is spelled out in state law, so read up on it.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Yes indeed. The legal details vary from country to country. Getting clients (and their lawyers) to understand this is not always easy. This is also where escrow sometimes comes in. I tended to follow a similar practice to yours. As an independent developer keeping clients happy is always a priority.
Peter Wasser
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts." - Bertrand Russell
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Kevin Marois wrote: This includes releasing me from reliability.
I do think you meant "from liability" (?)
«In art as in science there is no delight without the detail ... Let me repeat that unless these are thoroughly understood and remembered, all “general ideas” (so easily acquired, so profitably resold) must necessarily remain but worn passports allowing their bearers short cuts from one area of ignorance to another.» Vladimir Nabokov, commentary on translation of “Eugene Onegin.”
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Are you sure? 
Anything that is unrelated to elephants is irrelephant
Anonymous
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The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can never tell if they're genuine
Winston Churchill, 1944
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I'd just like a chance to prove that money can't make me happy.
Me, all the time
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I consult to other companies for a living so I have an idea what's involved.
The answer is - it depends.
If it's a large app with a lot of extraneous parts scattered across different repositories, then it could be a fair amount of work. They probably want to also ensure that their not giving away any proprietary code(I wrote various pieces of code that I give them permission to use in a compiled form, but not the source). The rest is code I write specifically for them so they get the source.
Then they probably will also go through the code thoroughly before giving it up to make sure it's 'clean'.
Add to that their probably charging an hourly rate to have one or more developers/DB Admins do this.
If it's not broken, fix it until it is
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Kevin Marois wrote: their not giving
they're
Kevin Marois wrote: that their probably
they're
Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors,” who deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.-Neal A. Maxwell
You must accept 1 of 2 basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe or we are not alone. Either way, the implications are staggering!-Wernher von Braun
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virang_21 wrote: Now that project is almost over we are asking for a source code + database
First off, bad on you for not asking up front, before anything is even written, for the keys to the repo. Haven't you guys been reviewing change logs to see if the billing seems reasonable for the work? Haven't you been verifying that you can build the code as the project develops? Haven't there been code reviews of the work?
virang_21 wrote: Their estimate to deliver this will take 2 days and cost approx $3000.
Sounds to me like they haven't been using source control. Or if they have, the project is in shambles. But the price seems high, but not necessarily the timeframe. What are you paying these guys as an hourly rate?
virang_21 wrote: and not sure about TFS
Having used TFS, it could very well take 2 days to get everything sync'd up, not to mention get it downloaded on your end! 
Marc
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Chances are it has more to do with red tape and bureaucracy than anything to do with the tech side.
Jeremy Falcon
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Not much you can do about this now; the souroutsorceller [1] has you by the bollocks.
But, you can make sure you, or your company, never sign a contract that permits things like this to happen.
The principle recommended is: no milestone reached, no deliverable received and signed-off on = no payment, with final payment at least four times the amount of any milestone payment.
cheers, Bill
[1] yes, a portmanteau invented just for this post combining: "out" ... the OP is out money; "sour" ... this is not a "happy ending;" and a form of "ensorcell" (the archaic English verb with the sense of "casting a spell," or "bewitching") to indicate the possibility of bewitching seduction by the happy "outsiders" that allowed them achieve situational control and demand more money.
«In art as in science there is no delight without the detail ... Let me repeat that unless these are thoroughly understood and remembered, all “general ideas” (so easily acquired, so profitably resold) must necessarily remain but worn passports allowing their bearers short cuts from one area of ignorance to another.» Vladimir Nabokov, commentary on translation of “Eugene Onegin.”
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I would think you are lucky to get away with a 3k bill. I know organisations that have been presented with a bill an order of magnitude bigger for the source of a project they did not nail down in a contract BEFORE starting.
I also seem to recall a thread here where the consultant was inquiring as to who should pay for the lawyer to write/vet the contract. The consensus was the company should pay that bill, ie YOU so 3k for that error is probably minimal.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity
RAH
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Actually I would have said at least a week.
Not that the actual export would take that long, but rather to have a run through the code for "ugly" comments or indentations (in short: making it look "more professional") and also to make sure all is OK with the export (it compiles, it runs). Then I would make a clear and nice package and some release notes on how to setup the dev environment and to install and populate the database.
When I'm writing this, a week is even fast. Note that I assume they were not aware they should give the code up front.
In addition a consultancy firm (in Belgium) asks for anywhere between 450€ and 1500€ per man-day so if they put a few people on this 3000$ is not that much. I would even start to question if they are delivering quality product for that price.
With consultancy firms you're always in a fight and you're never sure what their actual work is. (unless they come work internal of course)
(But that's of course my opinion)
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I know that as a consultant I would always insist that a clients work be developed in some sort of repository. SVN is simple, and using VSO and GITHUB makes it easy to share in the future.
Things to take away from this experience - always make delivery of code and data repositories part of the deliverables for the project, and indicate how it should be delivered (SVN or similar repository for code, database backup or generate script for database).
Probably the best way in the future to deal with this is to set up a git repository (GitHub or VSO work well), then let clone it. They can then easily push the work to you as part of the deliverables. And this lets you review and track the code that they produce.
I had a similar experience with a company I recently left. They had brought in an outsourcing company from India, and at least had set up a GitHub repository. Unfortunately it was the companies main repository, and the outsourcers were committing to it directly rather than to a clone, making things somewhat messy. But at least it was easy to track the work being done. Unfortunately before I came in the company was not managing the work being done, there were no clear requirements or specifications. It ended up that the developer "managing" this rejected the work, and the outsourcers would redo it in an seemingly endless cycle, all which was billed for. So I would suggest that any time you outsource something, that you have a very strong project manager overseeing everything, that the requirements are clearly defined, and that the work performed meets those requirements. Otherwise it is quite possible you will get billed for substandard work for things you didn't ask for.
[I have worked as a contractor/consultant for years, and know many other great contractors who are open and honest in what they do. But there are plenty also that only are concerned about billable hours...]
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You think that's bad? I worked for a company where the consultant we were forced by the president of the company (my direct boss) to use was in another country and would send his code piece by piece via email or occasionally floppy disks and FedEx. Upon receiving the code we, usually myself or my #2, would have to rewrite it completely to make sure it worked without memory leaks or multi-threaded issues because it was so badly designed and written (without any comments or useful and meaningful documentation).
Any complaints from my team about the code in earshot of said president of the company resulted in instant dismissal. I managed to avoid this and my #2 quit for a better job. I was on an H1 visa at the time so I was effectively an indentured servant rather than the "Director of Software Development" my title declared.
Guess who turned out to be both my boss's gay lover and, wait for it... (we found this out much later after he had fled the country pursued by both the IRS and the FBI) love-child?
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Microsoft: When you ask me if I want to restart my machine and I say "no thanks: later is better" and then I'm in the middle of a bunch of complicated stuff with 20 windows open and stuff running, and then I turn away for a minute, please DO NOT RESTART MY BLOODY COMPUTER ON ME!
Seriously: would something like an idle check or time-since-last-keystroke before pulling the plug on everything be too much to ask?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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I've made 8.1 my primary laptop and desktop OS. I have a secondary laptop for 10 and an SSD's arriving this week so I can dual boot 10 on my desktop.
That way I can keep 20 windows open and not worry about sneaky reboots behind my back
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Nish Nishant wrote: and not worry about sneaky reboots behind my back
That says so very much in its simplicity.
And, in its necessity.
| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "As far as we know, our computer has never had an undetected error." - Weisert | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you are seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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