Terms of use, and how an engagement is contracted.

Read this first

Nothing on this page is the contract. Every engagement is governed by a written quote or services agreement specific to it, which sets out the scope, the schedule, the price and the particular commitments. What follows is the framework those documents sit inside, published so you know what to expect before you ask for one.

The operating company is Coeur du Web (registered name COEUR DU WEB), a French simplified joint-stock company with a single shareholder (SASU) and share capital of 5000 €, registered with the Paris Trade and Companies Register under number 850 520 941, VAT (value-added tax) number FR48850520941, 58 rue de Monceau, 75008 Paris, France.

Using this website

The content of this site, including the text of the articles, is ours. You are welcome to quote it with attribution and a link. You may not republish it wholesale, and you may not present it as your own work.

The articles describe how we approach technical problems. They are written from real engagements, but they are not advice about your specific situation, and reading them creates no relationship between you and us. If you want an opinion that accounts for your actual constraints, that is a conversation, not a blog post.

We make no guarantee that this site will be reachable without interruption, though we would be embarrassed if it were not.

How an engagement is contracted

A written quote comes first. Every engagement is preceded by a detailed written quote, valid for thirty days. Nothing begins without written agreement. There is no situation in which work starts on a handshake and the paperwork follows.

Fixed fee, not time and materials. The commitment is on the outcome for the scope defined in the quote: the deliverables, the schedule, the quality. If we fall short of it, the remedies are written into the contract and they are at our cost, not yours. This is the whole reason we do not bill by the day, and the reasoning is set out in plain language on how we work.

Migrations carry a data commitment. Where an engagement involves moving data, the contract carries an explicit commitment on no data loss. If data is lost through something we did, restoring it is at our expense.

Service levels. Our standard service level agreement commits to: work begins within five business days, support responses within forty-eight business hours, and a critical defect addressed within twenty-four business hours. These can be tightened contractually if your situation requires it.

Four commitments that apply to every engagement

Overrun. The price of a fixed-fee engagement is firm for the scope described in the quote. If the effort actually needed to deliver that scope exceeds our estimate, the difference is ours and is not invoiced to you. A new need, outside the scope described, is not an overrun: it is priced separately, and you are free to accept or decline that price.

Handover. The exit is prepared from the day the contract is signed. At the end of the engagement we deliver the documentation, transfer to you the access to and the source of everything we produced, and train a person you designate. The handover requires you to designate that person and make them available while it takes place.

Team. Every engagement is scoped and run by Laurent Tulpan. The people who carry it out are named in the quote, and any replacement is proposed to you in writing before it takes effect. We run no more than two large engagements in parallel: when that limit is reached, we propose a start date rather than an immediate start.

Price known before signing. The price of an engagement is set in the quote before any commitment, with no day rate and no count of days. There are two exceptions, stated in the quote when they apply: an expert audit, billed by the day, and a procurement framework that only accepts time spent, in which case a cap and an end date are written in. The technical due diligence is paid in full when ordered, and credited in full against the engagement if that engagement is signed within thirty days.

What you own at the end

On delivery and full payment, you own the source code written for your project, the content produced for it, and the credentials to every third-party tool involved. Not a license to use it. Ownership.

We keep authorship attribution for the work, and unless we agree otherwise we may name you as a reference. You can take over the work or move to another provider at any point, and if the relationship ends we provide a documented handover. This is stated in the contract precisely so that it is not something you have to negotiate at the worst possible moment.

Confidentiality

Everything you tell us is treated as confidential by default. We will sign a formal non-disclosure agreement on request, and we do not consider being asked for one a sign of distrust.

Liability, and its limits

Our liability is capped at the amount invoiced for the engagement concerned. We are not liable for indirect consequences such as lost business, lost operating income or reputational damage, for changes third-party vendors make to their own products, or for events outside anyone's control.

We carry professional indemnity and general liability insurance with AIG. The certificates are available on request as part of contracting, along with the standard French compliance documents a client may need for its own procurement file: tax and social security clearance certificates, and a current company registration extract.

Ending an engagement

Fixed-scope engagements may be terminated for a material failure to perform, after a formal notice that has gone thirty days without being remedied.

Monthly engagements may be ended at the close of any period once the initial commitment has run, with one month's notice by email to loading the address…. There is no cancellation penalty and no automatic multi-year renewal. An arrangement that has to be locked in is one we have stopped earning.

Governing law, stated plainly

Our contracts are governed by French law, and if a dispute cannot be settled amicably the competent courts are those of Paris, where the company is registered. Prices are quoted excluding value added tax, which applies according to the rules of your jurisdiction and your business status.

If you are contracting from the United States, read that paragraph carefully rather than skim it: it is the one clause that genuinely differs from what you may be used to. It is negotiable on engagements where it matters enough to raise. What is not honest is to bury it and let you discover it later, so it is here in its own section.