[consulting] Contract > Developer liable for bugs?

[Marty Landman]

Not only would I put a time limit on it (my bid jobs are always 
warranteed) I also include language to say that if the flaw is not 
found to be my fault the client is responsible for paying for my time 
at my hourly rate, which is specified in the contract. Otherwise you 
can easily run into a situation where someone else mucks up your 
code, then the client comes back to you to fix it for free.

Marty

At 06:12 PM 8/6/2008, you wrote:
>Sounds fine since your limit of liability is to fix the code.  I've 
>seen this before but have always attached a duration to it, like 
>you'll support it for six months or something post production.
>
>Always have a lawyer review your contracts ;).
>
>Kevin
>
>On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 5:06 PM, Morbus Iff 
><<mailto:morbus at disobey.com>morbus at disobey.com> wrote:
>
>I've been writing software (for hire or otherwise) for ten years or so.
>
>I've never run into an instance, or heard of a case where, once a piece
>of software has been "shipped" or "finished", the developer of that
>software is liable for Things That Go Wrong With It. (I'm exempting
>trojans and viruses, etc. - assume legitimate software here).
>
>Specifically, I've received a contract for a new job which states that I
>(as the Consultant) would be financially liable for any bugs in my
>created Drupal code. I balked that I'd never heard of such a thing
>before and received a revised version which now reads like this:
>
>   "The Consultant will also be responsible for any damage, loss or
>   liability (whether criminal or civil) of or suffered by  the
>   Company ... in connection with any act or omission of the
>   Consultant ... In order to compensate for this, the Consultant
>   agrees to resolve any issue with his code (and his code only)
>   as it arises at no additional cost to the Company. Correcting
>   the problem code is the limit of liability to which the
>   Consultant will be held."
>
>I'm still cautious about this - while the final two lines state that my
>only liability is fixing bugs for free (which is perfectly fine with
>me), the first line still contains scares like "civil" and "criminal
>liability", "damage" and "loss". Being "responsible" for "loss" still
>sounds like I'd pay money if "problem code" caused financial damage.
>
>A few questions:
>
>  * has anyone else seen something like this?
>
>  * has anyone else /agreed/ to something like this?
>
>  * are my worries about financial responsibility accurate?
>
>  * how should I respond to this?
>
>--
>Morbus Iff ( and think about the bad things that I didn't do )
>Technical: 
><http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/779>http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/779
>Enjoy: <http://www.disobey.com/>http://www.disobey.com/ and 
><http://www.videounderbelly.com/>http://www.videounderbelly.com/
>aim: akaMorbus / skype: morbusiff / icq: 2927491 / 
><http://jabber.org>jabber.org: morbus
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-- 
Marty Landman, Face 2 Interface Inc. 845-679-9387
Drupal Development Blog: http://drupal.face2interface.com/
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