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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."
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.
At least in California, the list of "things to watch for before the contract gets signed" is pretty short:
1) A $25,000 campaign donation to the Governor's re-election fund.
I have to sign up for a Verisign test server certificate every two weeks. As part of this, I have to agree to a lengthy service agreement displayed in an editable TEXTAREA. Of course, I always delete the contract text before agreeing to it.
Well, this is interesting.
I was hired this summer by a large corporation (4,000+ employees and will otherwise go nameless) to do software cost analysis on their mainframe software. They hired me precisely for this reason: to analyze each contract and summarize their software license/maintenance costs for the current year and into the future.
Thankfully, my company has been in business since the 1960's and are pros when it comes to language in the contracts. I mostly do work with mainframes, and I've found a few keys to look for:
1. Hardware upgrades - Many companies will charge additional license fees for upgrades to mainframe CPU's (often in MIPS or MSU ratings)
2. Maintenance - It is important to put some kind of "cap" on maintenance. A typical example: "maintenance shall not exceed the lesser of 15% of current license fee or 10% over the previous year." Also, it must be assumed that fees *WILL* increase the maxiumum allowable charge under the contract.
3. Usage - In a large corporate setting, companies often must pay for the use of software on multiple sites or for use of partially owned, divested, or acquired entities.
As you can see, the charges mount quickly. That's why it's essential only to run the software necessary, and nothing more.
-Bullseye
In several other industries, there are "standard contracts", and I think it is well past time that became the case in the Software Industry. A specific example is the Building/Construction industry. They have "AIA" (I forget what that stands for, but it should be easy to find) standard contracts that they can call on so everyone is on the same page. A very good idea.
One reason I love Open Source software is that there are only a few licenses that I have to know about, and just by knowing the name of them, for example knowing something falls under the "GPL", or a "BSD" license, I know EXACTLY what to expect. This is of immense value to me as a user of software.
I think that property should be more heavily emphasized by the Open Source industry.
Frankly, I don't know why people put up with the EULA uncertainty and why the courts let Software companies take advantage of people in that fashion. They don't for most other products, heck even "media/content" products.
Erich Boleyn
erich@uruk.org
Nope, no sig
"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.