Slashdot Mirror
Contracts Contracts Contracts
An anonymous reader submits: "There's an article over at CNet about all those software contracts that are out there, and what to watch for before signing the dotted line. Using California's $95 million Oracle problem, they define what the general terms are that get used in software procurement and support contracts. While mostly geared at commercial software, one can use most of this article to target open source tech support contracts."
(when I think of the Oracle/Cali deal)...
"A fool and his money are soon parted."
Don't sweat the petty things. But do pet the sweaty things.
Is it really about suing someone? Those of us who have worked in large companies see large contracted project fiascos all the time. No one gets sued, but its interesting that those responsible for the decisions seem to defend the mistakes.
Kickbacks? Were they wined and dined? Did they have a girlfriend involved that happened to have close ties to the contractors? I don't know. Marketing and managers have strange relationships and are often disjoint with the rest of the company. I'm sure stories of bad relationships between vendors would make for great movie material.
In many cases, large consulting firms (KPMG, various SAP groups, etc) are brought in at vastly inflated lates to run a project, in part because they can serve as a scapegoat when the project comes in late and overbudget or fails in a spectacular fashion.
This is a basically an insurance policy for upper management. Rather than firing the entire management team, one or two token IS directors are kicked free with a golden parachute, and the rest of the blame is directed at the outside contractors.
The board and the shareholders see the huge damages in the lawsuit against the contractors, and this sleight of hand is enough to direct their ire away from the real culprits in upper management.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
Businesses will try to screw others out of dollars most effective ways. Given that horizon for most software companies life expectancy is around 1-2 years(IMHO) the faster you collect money in the beginning of life cycle, the more likely you are going to survive later, nevermind those pesky customers. You can tell them damn lies, lies and more lies, but if your bank is empty, you have no business.
2c.
"We comb through each word of every contract to make sure that the definitions that we think we agree to are the ones that are written into the document. It is worth the extra time and money to avoid getting jewed by the other party." said Stephen Weinberg, CTO of Dimension Securities.
I realize that the man is probably Jewish, and that he works in an industry that this type of language is the norm, but holy cow, does CNet have to print it?
It's bad enough that such epithets exist and are used, but does the man have to slander his own race by using the term? It's like black people who have struggled to gain acceptance in society and transcend racial stereotypes calling each other 'nigger'. It's sad.
Maybe it's just the paternalistic white man in me that's struck by how backwards the use of these terms is. Maybe my sensibilities are too high. In any case, I guess the only thing I can do is avoid using these words altogether.
>
>Since it was a government contract, the money belonged to the taxpayers of California... Am I to intrepret your post as a knock on Californians ?
I'm not gonna speak for the original poster, but consider what Californyuh's facing.
$23B deficit, budget at an impasse (to be fixed using Enronesque off-balance-sheet financing tricks that won't show up in higher taxes until after the election), mismanaged power crisis, highly questionable Oracle deal, pay-for-play legislation for pipefitters unions (in exchange for campaign donations, banning PVC pipe because it's cheaper to install than metal, which the pipefitters oppose) and prison guards' unions (similar exchange: give campaign funds, get favorable legislation).
Dot-com implosion started in 2000. Last time I looked, this was 2002. Anyone here not able to guess that capital gains taxes would drop precipitously, resulting in a drop in state revenues? Yet spending is up, year-over-year, by a rate far over that of inflation. Up 20% this year alone. Oh, right. This is CA, where only budget that matters is the campaign budget.
Yet Davis still leads in the polls. So yeah, it looks like a taxpayer and his money are easily parted.
But I'll be charitable and withhold judgement until after the elections.
The article states that a perpetual software license means that you can use it for the life of the product provided that you continue to pay the contract fees.
As I understand things, a perpetual license really means that once the software is licensed in a particular way, you can go on using it as long as you want. You will run out of support for it after your contract term is up, but you can still make use of the software.
I have run across this type of license often. It is tied to a hardware component, dongle, or (rarely) a particular site. I have fixed many an older machine just for the use of the software licenses attached to it. The contracts clearly stated the word 'perpetual' when defining the license.
In many cases, a physical device is used in combination with FlexLM to provide the license functionality. If you do fail to pay your fees and want to move the license, many companies will either require you to purchase a new license (at the current version) or pay all back fees to get a new license key for the version that was in use.
Anyone else think this definition is bogus, or was I misunderstanding what I was seeing?
This type of experience was one of the primary motivators for me to begin exploring OSS for my computing needs.
If you can learn to compile and use Open Source software, then you are set for life.
Blogging because I can...
It's all well and good to bitch at contracts that favour vendors but wait until you've left the cosy world of employment and created a startup. I was a lawyer for years working for startup companies and getting beat up in long negotiations with big players who understood nothing other than the fact they were big. All these "musts" for customers ignore the economic balance that must be worked out in every end user/supplier relationship depending on the cost of the software, the size of the startup, etc. A startup can be destroyed and I'm talking about companies that make millions per year.
I'd love to see the article written from the other perspective, for instance end users who never end up paying for their software because they refuse to complete acceptance testing though they continue to use the software. There's one you need a lawyer to avoid. The concept of repaying the whole value of the software for maintenance issues is crazy. If need be, you use a service level agreement that sets out reasonable goals and at maximum, proportional rebates on maintenance and support fees paid for the period of time the problem occurs.
And the concept that maintenance and support should continue on forever has sunk many a poor company, tying up valuable resources when they should be working on the next product.