Agreement : Re: [SWLUG] Linux Awareness Day - Saturday 17th May

[Dave Cridland [Home]]

Warning, containese legalese, persons of a nervous and/or technical
disposition should partake of a stiff drink first!

On Mon, 2003-04-07 at 23:36, bascule wrote:
> hey phil,
> i've been looking at waivers for folk to sign, how do people feel about a 
> version of the following:
> http://www.vlug.org/ifht/waiver.html

I'm not quite so keen on that, since there's some holes in the legalese,
and moreover, it reads a little muddled to me.

Instead of bitching and moaning at length, I've written a possible
replacement, sorry it's so horribly wordy, these things tend to end up
like this. I should also point out it's only a first draft, there'll be
holes and mistakes.

--- 8< ---
Linux Awareness Day Decalaration of Liability

Preamble:

This is a declaration of liability for an event involving the
installation of Linux based computer software held on Saturday 17th May
2003 (hereafter referred to as "The Event"). This document specifies an
agreement for any of the volunteers (hereafter referred to as "The
Volunteers") present at the event to install, configure, use, and/or
demonstrate the Linux operating system kernel and other software
products which operate on it (hereafter referred to as "The Software")
on one or more computers or other electronic apparatus (hereafter
referred to as "The Hardware") brought to The Event by the individual or
authorised representative of the entity named below, hereafter referred
to as "The Visitor".

Other computers and electronic apparetus connected, directly or
indirectly, to The Hardware, whether at The Event or at any subsequent
time, are hereafter referred to as "Any Other Hardware".

1. The Visitor declares that they are the owner of The Hardware as
detailed below, and that they have full responsibility under law for any
actions resulting from The Event.

2. The Visitor grants full authorisation for The Volunteers to install,
configure, use and/or demonstrate The Software on The Hardware.

3. The Visitor understands and accepts that, where appropriate according
to the sole discretion of The Volunteers, reasonable precautions will be
taken to avoid loss of information or data on The Hardware, any such
loss is entirely the responsibility of The Visitor. The Visitor takes
full responsibility for making copies of any such information or data
for use in the case of partial or complete loss, such copies normally
being known as "backups".

4. The Visitor understands and accepts that The Volunteers offer no
warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including, but not
limited to, the implies warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for
purpose, and that The Volunteers are not operating in a professional
capacity of any kind.

5. The Visitor accepts any licenses required for installation and/or use
of The Software.

6. The Visitor takes full responsibility for The Hardware at all times,
and The Volunteers shall not be held liable for any loss, or damage
resulting directly or indirectly from their actions at The Event,
whether to The Hardware or Any Other Hardware.

7. The Visitor hereby waives any and all rights to claims of any kind
for any resultings damages or loss of any kind that may arise as a
result of The Event.

8. The Visitor shall declare The Hardware on the manifest below,
obtaining a number assigned by The Volunteers, without which The Visitor
may not be able to take The Hardware away from The Event. Each
individual portion of The Hardware requires a seperate entry upon The
Manifest.

Manifest of The Hardware:

Description			Assigned Number
...........			...............

The Visitor:

Company Name (if appropriate): ____________
Name: _______________
Signature: ____________  Date: ________
--->8---

A quick explanation of what each paragraph is for:

Preamble: I'm me, you're you, and we're both here to play with Linux and
stuff which runs on Linux. Think of it in terms of #defines, mostly. "I"
below is "The Visitor", who might be, technically, a company.
1. "I own the hardware, and it's my problem." I'm not sure about "own"
here - "authorised" in some form might be better.
2. "You can install whatever you like on it."
3. "You might, if you feel like, try not to lose my data, but if you do,
it's my problem."
4. "You don't garrantee anything, and you're a dumb schmuck who wouldn't
know anything really anyway." - specifically, if I show up and help, and
screw up, then it could be argued that I should know better, since I'm a
Linux consultant by trade - except, I'm, not acting in a professional
capacity, hence I needn't know better.
5. "I agree to the licensing."
6. "I won't sue the volunteers."
7. "I won't sue anyone."
8. "I've got to sign in all my hardware, otherwise I might not get it
back." This one will need rewriting depending on how people are signing
in and out hardware.

Note that 7, 6, and 1 all have direct clauses about not suing people,
and 3 pretty much says the same, but in different ways to try and catch
all possibilities.

Also note that nowhere is there any concept that The Visitor asks The
Volunteers to do anything specific, nor that we'll do it if they ask,
and even that we won't jump up and down on The Hardware specifically
with the intention of breaking it. I'm assuming we'd generally be doing
what they ask, but protecting against them later claiming "But I didn't
tell you to do *that*".

I also need to add something which renders any verbal agreement made at
The Event from being in any way enforceable, or meaningful, or
something, in case someone slips up and says "sure this'll work", or
"Yeah, I'll do that for you". Otherwise that could be claimed as a later
addition to the contract or some other legal crap.

Finally, something about the advice given - again, no professional
capacity, no garauntee. I think this might be covered in (4), but I'm
not 100% certain, hence I might spell it out.

And no, I can't spell garauntee. :-)

> it would need extra hardware categories,
> plus if folk bring their hardware will it be easy to transport to the room and 
> easy/secure to store while waiting for an install?

The above preculdes them from complaining if it gets nicked,
incidentally, or should do. Harsh, I know, but I can't see we can do
otherwise.

> what about the scenario where too many people turn up for an install? take 
> names and numbers as people arrive to facilitate 'first come first served'? 
> it would be good to agree beforehand on the max numbers of installs to commit 
> to (based on volunteers there) even if folk leave with their hardware,
> i realise that this might seem like negative comments but think how optimistic 
> i'm being about interest!

Well, if 500 people all show up with Dell Inspiron laptops, it'd be fair
to only install a handful with the other ~490 people looking on, of
course.

The above is intended to cover us from "But you said you'd install Linux
on this thing for me!", as well.

> can i suggest that at least somewhere we acknowledge that linux is short for 
> gnu/linux just to forestall that whole 'linux is just a kernel' thing :)

BSD/GNU/X/MIT/PerlArtistic/Linux? But I intended to cover that argument
in my Preamble above, by the ridiculously overcomplicated way I defined
"The Software". :-)

Dave.