Is it wise to sell off outsourced software?

[winterslam]

I'm planning to invest some amount of money to get some software done through rentacoder.com (most in C++)


I'm not that well-versed in C++. I'm good at VB6 and C#.


Can I sell those programs safely?
What about maintenance? I'm worried about some unknown bugs which could surface later on because I would not know how to fix those bugs.

[RhinoBull]

Why not writing entire app in C#?

[winterslam]

Because I need to deploy the app on both Linux and Windows

[RhinoBull]

I would go with Java then and since you are as you said "good at" C# it wouldn't take you long to learn it.
This way at least you will own your app 100%.

[Pradeep1210]

Or maybe use the Mono framework etc. for linux. That way you can code in C# and use it on both Windows and Linux.

[DeanMc]

I would advise against it. I know a few people who got programs from RAC and while the worked the source was an absolute shambles, very badly written.

[techgnome]

I've sold stuff on RAC before... a lot of what you get depends on the who you get. there are quite a few "sweat" shops the trawl on there... as well as s few decent ones... unfortunately I think the bad outweighs the good... and often the people that are looking for stuff to be done are not technical minded people, so they don't care what the code looks like, as long as it works. And the code monkeys there know it. It's an experience I'll never do again (on either side).

-tg

[ntg]

I'm worried about some unknown bugs which could surface later on because I would not know how to fix those bugs.

I think you've pretty much answered your own question. Unless you can get support from the RAC guy that writes the application, I would definitely advise against selling something that you don't fully understand.

[RobDog888]

You need some kind of support if you are not going to be authoring it yourself. Or you could sel as-is but then that will hurt your sales as people wont trust it.

if you are wanting to sell software and have that peace of mind then you need to write it yourself or know the language so you can "review" the code and / or be able to maintain it.