Rob - Fluxweave

When you decide to create a mobile app for your business, it can be hard to understand where the code is coming from and who owns what part of it.

Your business needs to ensure your proprietary ideas are secure and wholly your own, but if you are unsure how code ownership works, understanding who owns your business’ proprietary ideas may not be as straightforward as it seems. This overview will guide you through the ins and outs of code ownership and help your business determine if owning code is necessary for you.

There is also a lot more to the intellectual property of a company than the bits and bytes of source code and the mobile app it drives.

How does code ownership work?

Code ownership has evolved over the years. Back in the 1970s, most applications were written from scratch, so code ownership was a lot more straightforward. Today things are a bit more complicated since most things are the work of much larger teams and may incorporate open source, 3rd party libraries and generally get quite large. The basic principle is the same: when someone writes some code, as with any other creative endeavor, the author is the initial owner of the creation. In a business context the code typically becomes the property of the business through the contracted agreement with their employee, contractor, or development company that writes the code.

To create an app today, very little of your app’s functionality is written from scratch – it could be as little as 5% – the rest is built upon what is already established. Instead, the complete final project includes code written in house, APIs available via the mobile operating system, open source components, commercial libraries, and–in a growing number of cases–cloud services. Looking into the three different possible sources of the other 95% of code can give us a clearer picture of code ownership.

3 ways code to manage ownership of code that you did not directly write

Open-source code

Open source code products give you permission to use, modify, and redistribute the code that you have access to. This is the primary way people gain access to reuse other developers’ code in their projects, and the adaptability of open source code creates greater collaboration between developers.

While there are many variations to open source, these are the two primary approaches:

Very few restrictions: MIT, Apache, or similar licenses allow others to license the code without any limitation other than retaining the author’s header in the source. The resulting product can be used for any commercial purpose.

More restrictions: Licenses that allow usage of the code but put some limits on what you can do. The best example is the GPL license, known as the viral license, which requires that any derivative work created from the source must also be released in full as open source.

While the original author is the copyright holder and owner of the code, open source licenses allow others to utilize the code for free. The benefit of open source code is helping to provide the building blocks for others to create bigger and better solutions within a community to have better coding solutions in the future.

Visible source

Unlike open source code, most commercial creators do not want to provide their work to others. However there may be some commercial benefit from allowing others to review and audit the code. Visible source code is a compromise: specific parties can look at the code but cannot use it or disclose it. This can help ensure that there are no security exploits or other issues with the code while still maintaining its value. This approach also allows collaboration between companies to build tightly integrated systems or services. In this case, the owner retains control over the code.

Source code escrow

If you are using a commercial system, platform, or no-code solution–which is a service that you license to create a new configuration of pre-existing app code–and they go out of business, what happens to the code? This question could be an important one for your business continuity or for critical systems viability.

In those situations, source code escrow is the answer. Source code escrow is a fail-safe that offers your business a way to move forward without the original developer. It is a legal agreement which guarantees your business use of the existing code if something happens to the developer or service provider so that you can continue maintaining the code they developed for you. Ownership of the code would still belong to the original entity, or their survivor, but you would retain the right to use the code to operate your business. This type of agreement can happen between your company and a company which makes code specifically for your use or with an app company that provides the same code framework to many companies, in which case multiple clients are all receiving the source code to continue their operations.

Source code escrow is a great way to ensure continuity, particularly when working with smaller service providers.

Who owns the code when you create a mobile app with no coding?

Creating a no-code mobile app means engaging with a service so that you can get all the features you want on your app without needing to hire a developer or learning to code yourself, which is why it has become a popular way to lower the barrier to entry on mobile apps for businesses. But when your business isn’t doing any coding, you also won’t own code for the app. Since most apps only use about 5% of original code, not owning the code isn’t a huge difference.

However, not owning the code doesn’t mean you don’t own a stake in your app. When you create a no-code mobile app, you own the configuration of the features of the application and your content. Building your configuration on an existing library or code service, called a walled garden platform, can be risky; if the platform goes out of business, your app will not be functional as just a configuration without a platform. In cases like this, it is important to have a clear understanding of code escrow to ensure the continued functionality of your business’ app.

Is it important to have ownership of your app’s code?

While it somewhat depends on your app idea, for most businesses it isn’t important–or even possible–to own all your app’s code. Only a fraction is written from scratch, and a lot of it uses collaboration to improve on what already exists. Trust and intellectual property are the two main factors in deciding if owning code is necessary for your business.

In some situations, such as working on a top secret government project or developing a new highly secure payment system, having the business or government directly own the code is the best choice. Still, even large companies, like Netflix, don’t own their web or mobile app’s code because it isn’t important for their business to do so. Netflix built on Amazon Web Services to create their platform, and while delivering high speed and quality videos is part of their business, their brand and content is more valuable than the video delivery code. Netflix trusts that AWS will continue operating as a platform while Netflix retains the right to their intellectual property.

Another important consideration is that without constant maintenance and upkeep freshly written code, like fresh produce, will start to rot. The tools, languages and libraries used to create code are constantly moving. Even if an app is perfectly bug free and fully supporting every possible feature it will require modifications and upgrades to keep it running on the latest platforms.

What should you focus on owning?

Code ownership isn’t as straightforward as someone learning to code and sitting down to type. The prevalence of open-source code and walled garden platforms has created a highly collaborative environment where developers are constantly working to improve others’ work. With the majority of code in apps today being recycled from other sources whether you hire a team of engineers or use a no-code solution, you aren’t going to own much code.

The business value in having an app doesn’t come from the code itself but the power of your idea, your brand and your customer relationships.

Want to build an app for your business? Check out our free guide to get started. Click here to download.

If you’ve decided to invest in making a custom mobile app for your business, what steps do you need to take to protect that investment over time?

While building an app has never been easier, it has also led to a number of apps that seem to degrade almost as quickly as they’re developed—in fact, it’s one of the biggest obstacles in app development. Fortunately, there are some straightforward solutions that you can set in motion before, during, and after app development to help ensure you build a custom mobile app that lasts.

What does it mean to have a custom mobile app that lasts?

Sadly, apps can quickly become obsolete due to constantly changing and updating technology, including your business’ app. For instance, when mobile phones are updated, it can break some of the functionality of your app. These breaks could create a small bug where part of your app doesn’t work properly, or it could change the security permissions that your app needs to function.

Even hardware updates, such as the phone getting a narrower design or curved screens will result in operating system updates which can throw off the layout of your entire app, making it hard to use for newer phones. Even though you want to make a mobile app that your customers will use for a long time, it’s impossible to keep your app working without taking technology changes into account.

Since technology isn’t going to slow down, your business’ app has to keep up with the changes in order not to get left behind. So when you ask yourself how to make a mobile app, you should also be asking what systems you’ll need to put in place to support your app moving forward.

Sustaining your app over time is a process that you will need to invest in throughout the life of your business to continue seeing value from your app. How you go about sustaining your app depends on how you create your custom mobile app.

Whether you buy, build, or create a custom mobile app with no coding, the following list shows possible ways to ensure your app will stay up to date:

If you outsource your app to a development company, you will be charged for the initial app development; however, this price will not include the cost of ongoing maintenance. You will need to retain them or someone with their skills for ongoing maintenance.
If you build your app in-house (or in-source), you will need at least one full-time engineer to develop it, so the development costs would be one person’s salary. After launch, you probably won’t need a full-time engineer to maintain your app, but you will need to either keep your engineer on a part-time basis or contract a developer on an hourly basis for upkeep.
If you create your app using a no-code solution, they will license their code framework to your business which you can build upon even with no coding knowledge. The company that offers the no-code solution will provide ongoing maintenance to keep their framework up to date as a part of the fee you pay for licensing their code. That means your primary maintenance will be ensuring any custom properties or elements you create still work properly after the framework is updated.

Why is it important to keep your app up to date?

Creating an app with a lasting and positive user experience leads to increased value over time. Making improvements to your app helps increase your business’ availability and communication, which provides additional value to your customers by always being easily accessible through their mobile phones.

Generating growth, creating personalized experiences, and reducing costs are just a few reasons for your business to keep your app up to date. Most importantly, regular updates can help increase brand loyalty by listening to customer’s feedback and implementing the changes they want to see most to improve their app experience. Your business’ app should be viewed as a reliable resource for customers, not something that is hard to use or out of date.

Updates and bug fixes are important factors in accessibility, usability, and creating positive experiences for your app’s users. However, you should also consider making some bigger updates as well to keep your customers engaged. After all, as your business needs change, your app should change with it.

Providing additional features and functionality over time shows your customers that you’re dedicated to providing additional value to them and continue to support them in making the best possible app for their needs. On top of that, apps that implement fresh design ideas when they are originally built can begin to look stale over time, so updating not only the content and functionality but also the visuals and user experience can help your app maintain its innovative feel.

How do you get the most out of your mobile app?

To get the most out of your app, you need to start with a solid foundation. When app development begins, prioritize getting an efficient and straightforward system in place to keep your app updated. Whether this is securing a contract for ongoing support from your app development company or renting a no-code app solution that provides ongoing updates and support as a part of their monthly fees, your business should have a plan in place while you are creating the app to keep it up to date.

Understanding how your app will be maintained and updated is a key part of deciding on the best app development solution for your business.

Once you’ve built a solid foundation for your custom mobile app, make sure you know the key indicators that your app needs to be updated. There are both external and internal factors that clearly indicate it’s time for your app to be updated, so you should familiarise yourself with them in order to anticipate necessary updates:

Externally, it is important to stay on top of news about developments and updates for mobile phones, such as big operating system updates or new phone releases with a significant design change. These mean you need to be prepared to do extra useability testing when they are released to make sure your customers aren’t running into any problems and promptly address any issues that arise from these external changes.
Internally, there are two main reasons your business may decide to make changes or update your app.
- Your development team or users notice a bug, or you find a security issue that needs to be addressed before the next major update.
- You want to attract new customers and keep existing ones happy by implementing changes to the design or adding new features.

How you approach making and maintaining an app makes all the difference to your app’s viability over time. Integrating ongoing maintenance into your app development process early on can help ensure your business’ app is successful over time. Because technology is constantly changing, sustaining your app requires consistent updates, but if you bear this advice in mind, you can build an app that lasts.

Do I need to own my mobile app’s code?