[consulting] Contract > Developer liable for bugs?

Thu Aug 7 09:15:01 UTC 2008

Hey All,

Wow hot topic... You might want to try including something like this  
in your contracts. FYI use this at your own risk;)

22. Limitation of Liability
Client agrees that it shall not hold BUSINESS or its agents or  
employees liable for any incidental or consequential damages which  
arise from BUSINESS's failure to perform any aspect of the Project in  
a timely manner, regardless of whether such failure was caused by  
intentional or negligent acts or omissions of BUSINESS or a third party.

T

On Aug 7, 2008, at 1:37 AM, paola.dimaio at gmail.com wrote:

> Interesting discussion, the scope being beyond Drupal itself
> One of my areas of work is software quality assurance process
> In our world, a bug is not just a bug
>
> Technically, bugs can be
>
> defects
> flaws
> errors
> failures
>
> It is the failure that brings economic damage, 'loss'.
> so, your client should be clearer about whose responsibility the
> failure/loss is due to, and if this is caused by en error from your
> part, or an error in some other part of the software development
> process
>
> Is it your job, or the clients job to write a decent specification
> that reflects ttrue users/business/systems requirements?  failure to
> identify or represent these properly may well result in systems flaws.
> You responsibilty should be to interpret and implement correctly what
> the client needs are
>
> Maybe just try to be a bit more specific as to what kinda bugs you
> will responsible for
> then you can limit your liability just to some aspects of the  
> implementation
>
> PDM
>
> On Wed, Aug 6, 2008 at 11:57 PM, Adam Mordecai  
> <mordecai at advomatic.com> wrote:
>> additionally there is such a demand for drupalistas these days,  
>> they'd be
>> foolish to walk away. Make them meet your demands. They need you  
>> more than
>> you need them.
>> Adam Mordecai
>> Advomatic Partner
>> ---------
>> AIM: AdamMordecai
>> Main: (303) 733-0215
>> Cell: (646) 625-9010
>> Fax: (213) 402-3541
>> ----------
>> Advomatic
>> 243 5th Ave, Suite 460
>> New York, NY 10016
>> http://www.advomatic.com
>>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 6, 2008, at 8/6/08•9:51 , Roshan Shah - Gloscon wrote:
>> Agreed. Bug is a bug but the fundamental difference is that Open  
>> Source
>> software is not owned by 1 company just as it is in proprietary  
>> world.
>> Drupal is popular because of its stable core and a very strong  
>> developer and
>> user community. But there is no way any consultant or any  
>> consulting company
>> should accept any financial liability should there be any bug/ 
>> defect in
>> Drupal - because it is collective development and contribution of  
>> many
>> people with no intention of getting $$$ by contributing back the  
>> code to the
>> community.
>>
>> When someone works, they do work for here. Our contracts have  
>> nearly 60+
>> assumptions where we cover almost every risk. We even limit our  
>> liability to
>> core or contributed modules or the development we do to only 30  
>> days post
>> deployment. We even have contracts written that clients have to  
>> test the
>> staging version and report all bugs within 7 days after we put the
>> development version on staging.
>>
>> Adam is right - the way the original contract in this thread is  
>> drafted is a
>> huge risk. We certainly would walk away from the project rather  
>> than get
>> into such contracts.
>>
>> Roshan
>> 604-630-4292
>> http://www.gloscon.com
>> Skype : bpocanada
>>
>> On Thu, Aug 7, 2008 at 8:35 AM, Jason Flatt <drupal at oadaeh.net>  
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> On Wed Aug 6 2008 4:20:49 pm Sam Cohen wrote:
>>>>
>>>> When building a Drupal site, I would never assume liability for  
>>>> bugs,
>>>> unless bugs are very clearly defined as part of something I wrote.
>>>> It's
>>>> not like they're paying a $100,000 licensing fee for the  
>>>> software.  It's
>>>> open source after all. There are going to be bugs --
>>>>
>>>
>>> I've got news for you. There are bugs in $100,000 licensing fee  
>>> software.
>>> It
>>> doesn't matter whether the source is open or closed. Making  
>>> excuses for
>>> open
>>> source software doesn't help its acceptance.
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Jason Flatt
>>> http://www.oadaeh.net/
>>> Father of Six:  http://www.flattfamily.com/ (Joseph, 15; Cramer, 13;
>>> Travis,
>>> 11; Angela; Harry, 8; and William, 2)
>>> Linux User:     http://www.kubuntu.org/
>>> Drupal Fanatic: http://drupal.org/
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> consulting mailing list
>>> consulting at drupal.org
>>> http://lists.drupal.org/mailman/listinfo/consulting
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Gloscon Solutions Inc
>> Open Source Web 2.0 Development Company
>> *Drupal *Ruby on Rails
>> T : 604.630.4292 (Canada)
>> T : 323.319.3609 (US)
>> Skype : bpocanada
>> Training/Incubation/Dedicated Resources : OpenKick.com
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
> -- 
> Paola Di Maio
> School of IT
> www.mfu.ac.th
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