[consulting] Contract > Developer liable for bugs?

[Katherine Lawrence]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadley_v._Baxendale

http://www.audiocasefiles.com/cases/detail/case/8514/

I had the above case in law school (West's "Basic Contract Law") and 
though this is not by any means the final word, I think  it might be 
kept in mind. If any time someone enters into an agreement, it is 
possible that the vendor could be bankrupted, vendors would cease to 
make contracts and this would be against the general interest of a 
society which wishes to promote commerce. Hence, in part, the holding.

Also, we might wish to think about mutuality. If a client wants you to 
stand his losses, what about sharing in his gains?

Again, these observations are hardly the final answer, but might add 
some other ways of looking at the balance of risk versus reward.

Mike Smullin wrote:
> Another way you can protect yourself is to charge by the hour instead of 
> a flat-rate. I've always found the latter to be inappropriate for 
> services when building something new. If I am selling a ready-made 
> product, then it's easier because *I* define what it WILL and WILL NOT 
> do, and if they don't like it they can go somewhere else.  But when it's 
> the client defining all that, and it has to pass their final inspection, 
> then you are just leaving yourself completely at the mercy of the client 
> by charging a flat rate. It's even worse when your client is indecisive, 
> or doesn't understand anything about art or programming but insists upon 
> participating in and approving of the fundamentals of what you do.
>
> That's because more often than not, they forget something and need a way 
> to be able to slip those things in at the end without you going bankrupt 
> and disappearing mid-way through the project.
>
> Suddenly, when they have to pay extra for those things, they start doing 
> weird things like actually reading your proposals, prioritizing and 
> postponing bug fixes, and *gasp* raising capital [which is their job, 
> not yours.]
>
> Mike Smullin
> http://www.smullindesign.com
>
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-- 

Katherine Lawrence, Chief Operating Officer
pingVision, LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company
interactive media design
1350 Pine Street, Suite 6
Boulder, CO 80302-4847

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katherine at pingv.com