How do remote commands work?

Question

Startups

Wondering how remote commands work? What access do they have to the product being created?
After all, usually from the side of the customer, everything looks like this - he invests in a project, maybe a startup, he is sure that his idea is unique and unrepeatable, and accordingly he is afraid that no one will steal its implementation.
It's been fashionable lately to talk about remote teams. So, if you recruit a team of freelancers, and maybe even permanent employees, but again remote, then where is the guarantee that someone will not push the developments to someone else? Or are team members only allowed access to specific parts of the project they will be working on? Then it is not clear how you can write code separately from the system as a whole.
Does anyone have experience with such a team? It is interesting how people work in such conditions and how the work is generally set.
ps inspired by reading Rework, where this method of work is extolled, as well as by the success of Maxim Spiridonov, most of whose projects are built according to this scheme.

Answer 1

Maxim Spiridov strongly advises the team to sit in his office under supervision in recent articles. Pruflink: spiridonov.ru/post/498
In Rework, they write that it is possible and so. But they do not say that it is so much better (as far as I remember). They themselves meet once a year, and they say that it is necessary earlier.
Usually the code is written together using CVS (google what it is).
Now I have a distributed outsourcing team:
+ I don’t depend on the place, I can work when and where I want
+ I don’t have to pay for an office and it’s difficult to milk me to the authorities
— it’s difficult to control and motivate the team
— it’s difficult to train newcomers remotely
— the interaction within the team is rather weak
Now I want to rent an office once a week on Saturdays, I wonder what happens.
At the same time, there is one remote employee - who works great and remotely. Employees need to be approached individually.

Answer 2

First, developers sign an NDA. Even if the project management is located in another country, violation of the NDA will lead, if not to criminal liability. at the very least it will ruin your career. No serious company will hire a person if it is known that he does not comply with the NDA.
Secondly, 99% of modern “startups” contain absolutely no technological know-how, their value lies not in implementation, but in an already existing audience, in image, in marketing, in a team - these things cannot be stolen along with the source code. Suppose you have received the sources of habrakhabr - what's next? Will you open your habrahabr with blackjack and whores? So no one will need it. To bring people to it, you will need to invest an order of magnitude more money in advertising than it costs to develop the same habr from scratch.

Answer 3

In a large project, code is not everything. But in general, the system requires tuning, and a third-party person who will push the code will take a long time to figure it all out. Plus, you still need to finish if the project was stolen not on the eve of the release, and edit bugs. This means that if he can produce something based on this code, then later and worse than those who developed it. So there is little point in stealing a project that has not yet shown itself to be successful - no.

Answer 4

The issue of information security (in the broad sense of the word) is certainly paramount here.
The ideal option is to break the work into its component parts, so that no one would know the entire project as a whole. In this case, it is necessary to provide a reliable "architect" (one or more project leaders). Finding one reliable is easier than ensuring the reliability of the team. The search can be both a person with a large portfolio and a number of reviews, for whom reputation is most important, and among those who live with you in the same country and relations with him can be secured by some kind of contractual legal guarantees. A significant disadvantage is the fragmentation of the team, and the correspondence and time with the quality of the project.
On the other hand, it is worth hiring a team that has a name, or you can use a team from any firm that is engaged in outsourcing. Of course, at the expense of the price, you get a sufficient level of guarantees.

Answer 5

Remote, sort of.