From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.4 required=5.0 tests=AC_FROM_MANY_DOTS,BAYES_00 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 10a146,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid10a146,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-06-11 12:06:32 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!isdnet!psinet-france!psiuk-f4!psiuk-p4!uknet!psiuk-n!news.pace.co.uk!nh.pace.co.uk!not-for-mail From: "Marin David Condic" Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.java.programmer Subject: Re: software suits, was Re: Long names are doom ? Date: Mon, 11 Jun 2001 14:47:50 -0400 Organization: Posted on a server owned by Pace Micro Technology plc Message-ID: <9g33oo$rp$1@nh.pace.co.uk> References: <3b24dc21$1@news.tce.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 136.170.200.133 X-Trace: nh.pace.co.uk 992285272 889 136.170.200.133 (11 Jun 2001 18:47:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@pace.co.uk NNTP-Posting-Date: 11 Jun 2001 18:47:52 GMT X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4522.1200 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4522.1200 Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8571 comp.lang.java.programmer:75364 Date: 2001-06-11T18:47:52+00:00 List-Id: There is a whole bunch of contract law that can come into play that can pretty much make everything written on paper completely meaningless. Courts are concerned with "Did a contract take place?" not so much with "What did the piece of paper say?" You are right. Courts can and have concluded that inequality of the parties in terms of sophistication and level of power can make the written contract null. Ever seen one of those things when accepting employment from a company that outlines all the benefits and so on where it says clearly at the top "This is not a contract..."? Guess what? Courts have thrown that sort of thing out saying "You lead the employee to believe that these were promises and committments - you formed a contract. Tough noogies that you wrote 'This is not a contract...'" I think that a good trial lawyer would probably be able to find case law and arguments that would nullify the usual disclaimers made for software in extreme cases of software failure. Not being a lawyer nor do I play one in newsgroups, I could not say for sure, but it seems that a lot of those standard disclaimers written in small type and easily blipped over when installing software seem to be a bit unilaterally imposed and with a bit of a disparity of power. How am I supposed to make an informed judgement about accepting your software "as is" until I install it and test-drive it? I can't adequately inspect the goods without installing it on my machine. And by then I've walked past the screen saying 'I Accept' without being able to find out that your software turns disk drives into a smouldering heap of slag. I think the only reason more software companies have not been handed their asses in court is that for the most part end-users have just come to accept as gospel that most software is buggy crap and there isn't anything they can do about it. If you can sue cigarette companies for billions for having sold a legal product with well known risks and blame them for the fact that you used their product and suffered from the well known risks, why can't you sue Microsoft? (Aside: Alcohol is also a legal product with well known risks - notice how they're going after that too? I'm waiting for someone to discover that a) McDonalds hamburgers are loaded with saturated fat. b) Saturated fat is addictive and kills more people than cigarettes. c) McDonalds uses clowns and toys to market this known health hazzard to kids. d) McDonalds, et alia, probably have *even*more* money than the cigarette companies. e) Trial lawyers ought to smell those profits too. Pretty soon we all should be able to retire from productive work and just sue each other in order to make a living.) MDC -- Marin David Condic Senior Software Engineer Pace Micro Technology Americas www.pacemicro.com Enabling the digital revolution e-Mail: marin.condic@pacemicro.com Web: http://www.mcondic.com/ "Larry Kilgallen" wrote in message news:y5Ym0m8y82Qu@eisner.encompasserve.org... > > Agreements not to sue are often held invalid if the defendent is judged > to be more "sophisticated" than the plaintiff in US courts.