Monday, January 21, 2008

AS IS CLAUSE - Deal With It

I love these "AS IS" clauses in software license agreements. I thought I'd check out Amazon Simple DB on my day off (yes, you can tell I'm a geek when this is what I do with my day off).

The limited beta is closed, so I guess I'll have to wait. But I signed up to be notified if a slot opens up in the future, and I saw this in the Amazon Web Services license agreement. Standard boilerplate I'm sure, but it still strikes me how little software companies are willing to warrant. It shows just how unreliable software really is.
WE AND OUR LICENSORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES ARISING OUT OF ANY COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. WE AND OUR LICENSORS DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE OFFERINGS WILL FUNCTION AS DESCRIBED, WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR FREE, OR FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS, OR THAT THE DATA YOU STORE WITHIN THE SERVICE OFFERINGS WILL BE SECURE OR NOT OTHERWISE LOST OR
DAMAGED.
Sheesh! The only thing one can hope for is that they really don't want anything bad to happen because of the impact on the perception of their services. Although I don't know how one could claim that Amazon Web Service was not giving "quiet enjoyment." :)

No comments: