I'm currently contracting full time but as a side project ive created a simple recommendation system. A company has approached me wanting to use the system. Currently its just packaged as a jar file. The system is not fully developed and said company will be providing me with the data to make recommendations.
I'm currently not being paid for this and its dependant on how well the system works over next few weeks but all signs are that it will work as expected.
Currently this system just works on my local machine but said company have asked me to upload it their server so that they can run it anytime they want. This makes sense but it feels like im being pushed out. This is something that I've been working on for almost a year, taking courses, reading books etc and so I feel extremely close to it. But perhaps this closeness is clouding my judgement and I should'nt really worry ?
I've considered approaching said company and offering to host the system myself but they will still be able to run the system on demand but it will be hosted by me. With all of the open source software out there perhaps im being too protective ? It would not be overly difficult for someone else to do what ive done so at same time I do not want to "shoot myself in the foot" by being overly protective.
I can see a day in the near future when I will be asked to share my source code so developers within their company can make changes.
I can see myself transitioning to work on this system full time if demand requires.
Any advice on what I should do ? Do I just need to explain what ive asked here and make clear that although they are using my system I'm still the owner , perhaps that is too hard lined ?