warranties

[Carol A. Kunze]

>
>> However, I may be confused by the term "merchantibility". I take that
term to 
>> mean that a commercial product is fit to be sold for the purpose under
which 
>> it is advertised. I can see no possible reason for a commercial concern to 
>> sell products it deems unfit for use, so I can't understand why software 
>> companies routinely disclaim this.
>
>While I can't speak for all vendors of all software, I can tell you
>what our lawyer told us when we were drafting our license (as best I
>can recall it).
>
>    If the company doesn't explicitly disclaim all (implicit)
>    warantees including merchantability, one leaves oneself open to a
>    particular class of otherwise frivolous lawsuits.


I agree.  It is much preferred to grant an express warranty, which you know
you can fulfill, than to be subject to the indefinate and subjective
implied warranty standard of "fit for ordinary purposes" - which could be
used to support almost any complaint which someone has about a software
program, however unreasonable.  

So software vendors frequently grant an express warranty on the disk (easy
and inexpensive to replace), and often another warranty that the software
will perform according to the documentation.   

BTW, if a program doesn't work at all, there is likely a disk problem and
it can be returned under the disk warranty. 

Carol


^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Carol A. Kunze 
Napa, CA
ckunze at ix.netcom.com
707.966.5211
707.371.1807 (fax) 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^