[jonnathanson]

"He forgets to mention intellectual properties issues."

Minor nitpick, but the author is a she.

But this is a good point. Generally speaking, whenever you're freelancing, you should be aware that "work for hire" is the standard agreement. This means that the work you create will become the intellectual property of the commissioning client unless you and the client agree otherwise. The burden is typically on you, as the contractor, to raise this issue and attempt to stake a claim -- be it maintaining ownership of the finished product, or be it making exemptions for any aspects of the product (for instance, any use of your existing IP as part of the new project).

IANAL, but I have freelanced pretty extensively over the years. I'm not sure what would happen if you entered into a freelancing project without addressing IP status in a contract or statement of work -- whether the IP would therefore be assigned to the client by default. But I don't leave that to chance. It goes in writing.

That said, I don't often fight for IP retention on freelancing assignments. Many of the people I have freelanced for would not have hired me if they couldn't own what I created. That's just the nature of the work I do. Your mileage may vary.

[wiz21]

Sorry for the "she", my mistake.

As for th eIP, my case is a bit strange, I have an app that I GPL'ed, now I want to sell a service where I actually add functionality to the app. The client gets the functionality, I get to put the functionality in the app (ie I open source it).

I also work in Belgium. Here, the author is the one who writes the code (in case of freelancing; it's the opposite if you're employee). Unfortunately, even if the law is fine, my client doesn't want to hear it ...