Fair is fair
One test, and every clause has to pass it.
Would this still be acceptable if the two sides swapped places? Where the answer is no, the clause is not in the agreement. That is the whole method, and it is why the two columns below are the same length.
| What protects you | What protects us |
|---|---|
| Your skill is yours forever. You keep working, teaching and competing. | What we build stays ours. You cannot take the finished article to somebody else and sell it. |
| Ending it is free. No penalty, no clawback, no fee for walking away. | Notice before it takes effect, so the people running it are not left short. |
| You are told the truth about erasing, backups included, with the real completion date. | One clear record of what was agreed, so nobody argues later about what was said. |
| You see the count and what you are owed. | We pay on real, checked hours and not on an estimate. |
| Nothing goes anywhere without your yes. | No passing it on. Whoever licenses it cannot hand it to anybody else. |
| Nobody borrows your work quietly. A way of working taught on one owner's machine stays with that owner. | The same story to everyone. What we tell a buyer is what we told you. |
| You are told what it can and cannot do, in the same words we use with a buyer. | We do not overclaim it, so nothing we sell has to be walked back later. |
Tables scroll sideways on a narrow screen.
Why it is written this way
A protection with no counterpart is a favour, and favours get withdrawn.
Every line on the left has a line on the right holding it up. That is deliberate. An arrangement where one side is simply being generous lasts exactly as long as the generosity does — until money is tight, or the people change, or somebody buys us.
An arrangement where both sides need the other's protection to keep their own is an arrangement that survives all three.