4 ms·

Good luck trying to get any actual liability out of them... Like, go try to make Oracle write you a contract where their base going down compensates your lost

by ilyt 3y ago

Good luck trying to get any actual liability out of them... Like, go try to make Oracle write you a contract where their base going down compensates your lost profits. You just won't get it, unless you throw some hideous amount of money their way (and they will just pay insurance company and pocket the rest).

mouse_ 3y ago
It's not about compensation, it's about finger-pointing. "WE didn't bill your card 40 times draining your bank account -- STRIPE did! Go sue them, not us!"
- numbsafari 3y ago
  You are still getting sued.
  - jiggawatts 3y ago
    It's a theoretical benefit, not a real one, and the scenario is so rare that most people don't think of it critically. It's like buying insurance against "damage by asteroids". E.g.: "We can just sue Microsoft" is a common one. a) Their SLA literally states that they will compensate you only for the cost of the individual service they provided. The $1/month Azure DNS Zone outage caused your $100M/month business to vanish off the Internet? Here's $1 for your compensation! b) The US Government sued Microsoft and failed to get very far. Are you the US Government? Do you have a budget for dozens of the best lawyers money can buy? Have you sued a multi-trillion dollar market cap org successfully ever? No? Why do you think you can... and win? Generally this boils down to: "I haven't read the contract I signed, but I'm sure if things go bad I can just make the lawyers magically fix things for me."
    - numbsafari 3y ago
      Most customers won't sue you. They'll terminate their business with you and go elsewhere. You have to decide, as a business, if trustworthy vendors are available and select the right one. You can also decide that it's important enough to your value proposition that you want to "own" it. The real reason companies hire vendors is that you don't need some mythical "FTE" that can do all the things. For the "price of a single FTE", a vendor can provide you access to a range of FTEs that are knowledgeable and capable in different domains, and you can flex between them. Thinking about RedHat, as an example, if you pay RedHat the equivalent of a single FTE, let's say $300k/yr, is that just one FTE working on maintaining Apache? A kernel contributor? GCC? This is about fractionalization and labor specialization, not some direct 1:1 tradeoff between hiring some mythical person with commit bits in hundreds or thousands of OSS trees.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    And their lawyers will point to the thing you signed saying they are only liable to the amount you pay them.
- djbusby 3y ago
  Risk Mitigation
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by ilyt 3y ago

mouse_ 3y ago

It's not about compensation, it's about finger-pointing. "WE didn't bill your card 40 times draining your bank account -- STRIPE did! Go sue them, not us!"

numbsafari 3y ago
You are still getting sued.
- jiggawatts 3y ago
  It's a theoretical benefit, not a real one, and the scenario is so rare that most people don't think of it critically. It's like buying insurance against "damage by asteroids". E.g.: "We can just sue Microsoft" is a common one. a) Their SLA literally states that they will compensate you only for the cost of the individual service they provided. The $1/month Azure DNS Zone outage caused your $100M/month business to vanish off the Internet? Here's $1 for your compensation! b) The US Government sued Microsoft and failed to get very far. Are you the US Government? Do you have a budget for dozens of the best lawyers money can buy? Have you sued a multi-trillion dollar market cap org successfully ever? No? Why do you think you can... and win? Generally this boils down to: "I haven't read the contract I signed, but I'm sure if things go bad I can just make the lawyers magically fix things for me."
  - numbsafari 3y ago
    Most customers won't sue you. They'll terminate their business with you and go elsewhere. You have to decide, as a business, if trustworthy vendors are available and select the right one. You can also decide that it's important enough to your value proposition that you want to "own" it. The real reason companies hire vendors is that you don't need some mythical "FTE" that can do all the things. For the "price of a single FTE", a vendor can provide you access to a range of FTEs that are knowledgeable and capable in different domains, and you can flex between them. Thinking about RedHat, as an example, if you pay RedHat the equivalent of a single FTE, let's say $300k/yr, is that just one FTE working on maintaining Apache? A kernel contributor? GCC? This is about fractionalization and labor specialization, not some direct 1:1 tradeoff between hiring some mythical person with commit bits in hundreds or thousands of OSS trees.
- ilyt 3y ago
  And their lawyers will point to the thing you signed saying they are only liable to the amount you pay them.
djbusby 3y ago
Risk Mitigation

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]