Future clients who have no intention of paying will probably be discouraged by this behavior.

Why would the nonpaying client, or future potential clients, care what the developer does with his property? If they wanted it, they could have bought it from him. (I'm assuming that the developer didn't sign any IP assignments upfront, or is violating any NDAs or similar agreements about this code.)

If I was a sculptor and a client commissioned me to create a work of art, then didn't want it, surely nobody would fault me for donating the work to a local school instead of destroying it.

I disagree that the commissioned art analogy applies directly. My argument is that this was not a work of art, but a business tool, designed to provide the client with a competitive advantage. Donated art doesn't harm the commissioner, but publicizing this code CAN harm the client. A competitor can take this code and use it against the client now.

It does sound like there was no proper contract between the coder and client, which means there were probably no NDA or IP contingencies, which also explains why the coder was able to work for 200+ hours without seeing a dime. I believe the coder is in the right here. I just wonder if what he did was best for his career. It looks like most of HN agrees that it was.

Quite frankly, a client who pays is a client. A "client" who don't pay is not a client in my book, hence are not entitled the privilege that a client-contractor normally has.

Considering he release something that he created on his own from SCRATCH, he can release it all he wants since all the code belongs to him. In this case, he is doing something within his rights.

If his work is derived from the "client" codebase, then its an entirely different case.

Great for the coder.

Potential for new contract work - either extending this or creating new work.

Having more code out on github is also a good way to get more employment opportunities.

I doubt future clients would be discouraged by this kind of behaviour. The good clients, the kind you want, understand the value of work and the importance of being paid. They will no doubt be able to emphasize with this coder.

If anything, it shows future clients that this coder is hard working and can actually produce code and get projects done. That by itself insures your reputation.

Let's see, he did work for his client, never got paid, but handed over the work anyway. That seems like fantastic customer service right there. :-)

If diluting the client's competitive advantage is harmful to the client, then wouldn't anyone who releases a free product with equivalent functionality be responsible for hurting the client? Is in unethical to, say, release Apache because it dilutes Microsoft IIS? That doesn't seem like a reasonable standard.

Now, if the client provided proprietary information to the contractor (wireless toothbrushes are going to be big next year!) and that information was somehow baked into the now-open code (automatically flag all startups building wireless toothbrushes and move them to the top of the pile!) that would be less than ethical. I see no indication that this happened in this case.

It's akin to how attracted the opposite gender would be to you, if they knew you (however justly) burnt down a (bad) ex's house.

I have seen a friend of mine retaliating on her blogs against clients who didn't pay on time, etc.

And I also know at least 4 prospective clients (honest ones, they always paid in full and on time to their contractors) who got discouraged because they had witnessed the "worst" of this friend when things might not work out between her and the clients.

I'm very doubtful future clients would be discouraged from working with the developer. Future employers might look sideways upon such behavior though.

On the other hand, it will discourage clients who might not have the ability to pay. The clients who can pay shouldn't have any reason to be worried.

I think you want to discourage them too.

Debatable that it's bad for the client, since he didn't disclose who the client is.

It sounds to me like the guy was trying to scrape together funding while he was commissioning a developer to work on his "great idea". I was almost caught into a same situation once.

I'm vary wary of anyone who calls himself an entrepreneur.

The client's name doesn't need to be released for this to be damaging. This is work that the client wanted (and maybe already received beforehand). Now it's publicly available. It dilutes the value of what the client may have had. It may open the door for competitors.

NOTE: I'm not saying the client doesn't deserve any of the harm this may cause. I only want to show that there IS a potential for harm.

This ensures that the coder gets some benefit from the code. At the very least he or she can use the code as example/demo code to show future clients. Yeah, its definitely not as good as monetary compensation, but its better than nothing.

On the contrary, I would think people would be be quite inclined to commission this developer so that the work would be done, and then they could just leverage the open source version he releases when they don't pay.

Wouldn't a lawsuit be more damaging? Would future clients be wary of someone who appears litigious?