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THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, [blah blah blah].

It's everywhere. Is there any software which expressly comes with warranties which can be taken seriously? That is:

  • Provided by a group/company which has the resources to handle warranty claims, not uncle Bob.
  • Assures something "useful," such as ACID or ISO-whatever compliance, not protection from meteor impacts.
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Hi l0b0, while this might make a great discussion forum topic or a blog post, open-ended lists of examples of a particular property are not a good fit for the Stack Exchange style of Q&A. If there's a specific licensing problem you personally have that has you thinking about this, feel free to ask about that, instead. – user8 Jan 31 '12 at 13:13
Thanks; I'll ask another for a specific warranty. – l0b0 Jan 31 '12 at 13:35

closed as not constructive by Mark Trapp Jan 31 '12 at 13:11

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4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote

I'm pretty sure there are examples of software that provide a warranty. Like for nuclear reactors... you know... to boost the confidence for the software that it won't cause a random meltdown.

Warranties are usually dealt per-project-projects because a client demands it, and less with a product-off-the-shelf.

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No vote without references. You'd expect that multi-billion dollar companies get warranties for the software they buy, but that's not the case as far as I can tell. – l0b0 Jan 31 '12 at 12:49
1  
or software that pilot radiotherapy devices. Or software that pilots some functions in cars. Really anything were the equation 1 bug == death of some people is true. – Simon Jan 31 '12 at 12:50
Do you have an actual reference for that? Even a scan of a car's manual or a snippet of a publicly available EULA. – l0b0 Jan 31 '12 at 13:35
up vote 4 down vote

Yes.

Some applications (medical, nuclear technology, aircraft) actually require warranties, and rightfully so, so any software made for these fields typically comes with an explicit warranty.

Custom software also usually comes with some kind of agreement regarding performance and reliability.

Furthermore, in some jurisdictions default law mandates a minimum warranty for software, and this warranty is valid even if explicitly denied. For example, in the Netherlands it is illegal to sell products (not just software, but any kind of product) that are not useful for any purpose, so the usual "fitness for a particular purpose" clause is generally void in the Netherlands.

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up vote -1 down vote

Usually commercial software with complex EULAs also have in the EULA some kind of warranty. It depends on the provider / creator / company of the software.

However, free and open source software, expecially GPL software comes without any warranty, in fact, what you quoted is part of the GPL license (section 15. Disclaimer of Warranty.). GPL also allows any company / person to offer warranty for a fee. You can read the GPL license here: http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html

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No need to single out the GPL; commercial software warranties are often pretty weak as well. I was just re-reading Windows XP's, and while it does offer a 90-day refund, it also states MS is not liable for anything that happens to your computer as a direct result of using Windows, including loss of data. Pretty weak, if you ask me. – Andres F. Jan 31 '12 at 13:00
It's part of every EULA I've ever seen, including Windows. – l0b0 Jan 31 '12 at 13:38
Back when I read the warranties, they were on the order of "This is warranted to be a CD-ROM for ninety days. Here's what you can't do if you actually find software on it.". – David Thornley Jan 31 '12 at 14:39
up vote 0 down vote

Alot of the vendor software in our industry (utility provider) seems to come with a contingency that it will do the job accordingly, if we agree to paying for a support contract. Seems that most vendors are unwilling to take a risk on their code, without securing your cash upfront. In some cases, the product may not do the job it was meant for, but lines like

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, [blah blah blah].

are designed to protect the vendor from situations where their product just plain does not work in an environment. Its a lot easier than saying

We guarantee that our product will address this exact issue, at this exact time, if you are located in this time zone, and your infrastructure is setup like.....

It allows them to charge exorbitant contracts in the business environment. On the home user side, it allows software vendors to not be responsible for users incorrectly purchasing software, and attempting to install and register, and then taking action against the company if their system will not run it.

So to get to the point, I have not seen a valid use of a warranty for software, that was not dependent on a service contract. Not saying they do not exist, just that I have yet to see them.

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Why the down votes on the answer? Atleast comment, so I can attempt to learn from my 'bad' responses.... – DaBaer Jan 31 '12 at 18:11

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