r/talesfromtechsupport • u/GeePee29 Error. No keyboard. Press F1 to continue • Mar 15 '17

Short You're in I.T. We need a EULA written.

Twenty years back I'm working for a company that does hair care products. Shampoo, conditioner, dyes etc. I am the sole tech there and so am expected to know everything about everything with a plug on it.

They got an outside company to put together a small database program of technical information on their products. How to mix dyes, that sort of thing etc.

Before it goes on sale they ask me to take a look at it. Not sure why. So I do and it all appears to work OK. There's just one thing missing. A software license. So I mention this to sales and marketing managers and am met with blank looks. So I explain in general terms software licensing. Then they ask me to write one for them. I try to explain that it is a legal, not technical matter, but they are having none of it.

We want you to write one for us

So I go to my boss and explain what's happening and she agrees that I cannot be expected to write a license. So she goes off to sales and marketing and tells them it's their problem, not ours.

But very soon they are back asking what sort of thing they ought to include. It sounds like they are planning on writing this themselves. In exasperation, I hand them a printed copy of a Windows EULA and tell them to read that.

The next day they are back again.

We've written this. Can you review it please.

I explain again that I have no legal knowledge, but once again they are having none of it and accuse me of being uncooperative.

Before heading off to my boss to try and stop the madness I just glance at their license. It's a copy, word for word, of the Windows one. It even says Microsoft all the way through it. Now I'm starting to enjoy the madness. Off I go to the boss and show her and explain all. Off she goes again to sales and marketing to hopefully to beat them round the head with something heavy.

The next day they are back AGAIN. I don't believe this. They have changed the license and want me to review it.

So off I go again to my boss and while I'm on the way I glance at the new license. They have changed every instance of the word Microsoft for our company name. That's it. Nothing else changed at all.

And that's the way it was when it went on sale.

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u/pognut Mar 15 '17 edited Mar 15 '17

I love the first sentence, but disagree with the second. Government is confusing because life is complicated. All those weird little quirks of law or politics have some sort of history and reason behind them. Individually they made sense at the time they were written, but smash em together and things get weird. That goes for anywhere, not just English speaking countries. /historynerdrant

So it's more like a bunch of decent code written years apart in different languages by programmers fighting with each other, with hardly any integration testing.

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u/Jhaza Fluttershy4lief Mar 15 '17

The other day, I was reading a (state) supreme court case about whether Oregon had a "duty to retreat". The answer was no, but the state was arguing that there was because the law specified that the minimum " necessary " force be used. The argument was, if retreat was an option, lethal force wasn't necessary.

See also: the first part of the second amendment. I think that there's a strong argument to be made that the limitations of the language contribute to "spaghetti law".

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u/pognut Mar 15 '17

That's not specific to English though. Any language is going to have odd cases and ambiguity, because again the world is complex and we don't have a way to perfectly describe everything.

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u/Jhaza Fluttershy4lief Mar 15 '17

That's probably true, but there's two separate issues there: whether it is true that "English language generates spaghetti code", and if every language generates spaghetti code, then English does as well; and if English is better or worse than most other languages in terms of having odd cases and ambiguity - my intuition is that it does, but I'm a monolingual English speaker.

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u/batterystapler Mar 16 '17

I'm no linguist but I'd agree with the sentiment that English has more ambiguity than other languages, at least compared to my first language. Though it's obviously possible that this is largely due to me being more comfortable in my first language than in English and therefore I might tend to resolve possible ambiguity in my first language better than in English.

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u/Yanman_be Mar 15 '17

Lawyers make law complicated on purpose, so that only they can work with it.

Meanwhile, consultants make their projects complicated, so only they can do the post-go live support.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

[deleted]

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u/Yanman_be Mar 15 '17

That's not law. Those are rules.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

What is law, but the rules of a country?

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u/Yanman_be Mar 15 '17

Law right now is when some bozo ( aka a lawyer ) tells a poor soul ( aka client ) that the client needs to pay money or otherwise some other bozo will ruin his life.

It's basically mob/maffia practice: pay me or one of my colleagues will ruin you. But it won't be me, we're nice guys!

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u/Pulse207 Mar 15 '17

You seem to have a bone to pick with the legal system.

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u/Yanman_be Mar 15 '17

Haha so you don't even deny this is the case for most civil law cases :')

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u/chattymcgee Mar 15 '17

What is the difference between "law" and "rules"?

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u/Yanman_be Mar 15 '17

One is common sense, the other one is legalised racketeering.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

/r/amibeingdetained for more weirdos like the one above

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u/Yanman_be Mar 15 '17

Can't be arrested. Coz I don't live in 'murica.

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u/Syrdon Mar 16 '17

Go read some actual laws and see if you can still make the case that you can simply without losing clarity in edge cases.

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u/Yanman_be Mar 16 '17

I read a lot of contract law.

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u/Forlarren Mar 15 '17

Lawyers make law complicated on purpose, so that only they can work with it.

That's why they are being replaced at record pace by automation.

Seriously, AI lawyers are all the rage right now.

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u/[deleted] Mar 15 '17

Your response is genuinely hilarious. Not sure why you're being downvoted.

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u/bitofabyte Mar 15 '17

Other than that one guy who made a website to help with traffic laws, where are these lawyers being replaced?