This is a bit off topic however it may be something people here have or will have the unpleasant opportunity to deal with. The company I work for has been having a problem tracking our customers warranty information and have used paper for items sent in for repair. I on my own time had created a web based application in php that would make both issues paperless, and in my own opinion getter overall. Once complete I informed my supervisor of the application and asked if It could be shown to the vice president for review, with the condition that this is my application and I own all source and design of the application. My supervisor said he would need our IT department to look it over before it went to the VP. At the request of the IT department head I downloaded the files and sql dump of the database to the company's server. The next day I wad in the IT office talking with the director of IT and a 3rd party company about the functions and design of the application. Because they are all Microsoft weenies and cant admin a server unless they can point and click their way to a fix they said php would not be an acceptable language and mysql is not a proper database to run an application on. I informed them I could rewrite this in asp.net and place it on a mssql database. The IT director said they will be having the 3rd party company just take what I have made, convert it to asp and build off of it. I approached my supervisor about compensation for the work that was done since they are using my design. I was told "you gave it to IT, there is nothing I can do about it" I explained that this was given on the condition that it would be shown to the VP and in hopes that I would either gain a transfer to IT, be awarded a contract to provide the solution and maintenance, or maintain my current position with a slight raise and I will maintain and built onto the application. I went up the chain to my supervisors boss and explained to them what had happened and that since they are using my design and altering it to another language that I would like to be compensated for my work. I was told that I did nothing but give them an idea and they were really doing all the work since what I did was not good enough and their computers could not understand what I wrote. The IT dept refuses to run anything besides Win Servers using IIS. They will not install PHP ( too many hacker problems they say). Did I just screw myself? Do I have any protection of my design? Can I do anything? Thanks, Vinny
