Selling Python Software

[Will Stuyvesant]

Thank you all for your input and thoughts!  I am replying to my first
post since otherwise I would have to choose one of the threads and I
can't: several are useful.

I got the customer's interest via a CGI based webservice that did show
what I can do.  Given this, now it would be very simple for me to keep
it as a webservice and give them a client script using the urllib
module or something like that...it would access the webservice and
they would never see the algorithm (I want to keep that to myself). 
That is the solution I would like best.  Not only because I want to
keep stuff to myself, but also because then I can easily upgrade to
new versions in one fell swoop if they or others are interested.

But a program that has to be connected to the internet is not
acceptable, their boss says.  Humph.

Maybe I should trust them and do normal bussiness as I did before with
other customers already: just send them the commandline version of the
program; but somewhere in the back of my mind I feel uneasy about
this.  Dunno why.  Maybe just because they have a pointy haired boss.

Alex Martelli told about software bussiness in southern europe, well,
it's one big EU now, with the italian Berlusconi as chairman (soon
appointed invulnerable for that job too?), and I feel it's the same
thing now here in mideurope too.

I guess I am going to send them an MIT licence (although I am afraid
those licences are pretty useless in The Netherlands), the .pyc files
for the algorithm and the utility modules, and a .py file for the main
program.  Or maybe I am going to use upx or another .exe encrypter
(but then I have to find out first if I can wrap my head around the
usage of the latest py2exe thing).  Then if I find out later they
copied the algorithm then maybe I have a case against them.  Just
let's not hope it comes to that, I'd rather start another project. 
But this little thing I like and it would be great if I could make
some extra money with it.  Curious?  It does XML transformations. 
With a twist.

Will let you know how it works out, takes a couple of weeks perhaps
until they decide.

Thank you!