I'm pretty sure I saw a library somewhere that could be purchased in both "raw code" and "commented, documented code" forms.
Which I can only assume meant they had the comments/documents and were intentionally stripping them out for the cheaper version. The difference in price was also actually quite significant as well, as I recall.
That, along with the fact that the person doing the purchasing is not necessarily the person who would be using the product, makes this IMO a particularly nasty sales tactic.
I've also heard war stories from Big Company folks about contracting out for a large software project, and per contract receiving the full source for the app, but none of the (particularly convoluted) build scripts or Makefiles.
Lessons Learned are why BigCo has a 900 page specification document including glossary of what the word "means" means.
Which I can only assume meant they had the comments/documents and were intentionally stripping them out for the cheaper version. The difference in price was also actually quite significant as well, as I recall.
That, along with the fact that the person doing the purchasing is not necessarily the person who would be using the product, makes this IMO a particularly nasty sales tactic.
I've also heard war stories from Big Company folks about contracting out for a large software project, and per contract receiving the full source for the app, but none of the (particularly convoluted) build scripts or Makefiles.
Lessons Learned are why BigCo has a 900 page specification document including glossary of what the word "means" means.