Vignesh Sankaranarayanan wrote: >....but for some reason, I just can't fathom a vendor leaving the >enforcement of a rule up to a customer, and letting the contract >(something completely detached from the machine) be the only >binding factor.
Is that so hard to imagine, though? Let's suppose you rent an apartment, and you sign a lease. The lease contains certain terms and conditions. Those terms include, as possible examples: 1. You cannot sublet (rent out) the apartment to someone else without the landlord's permission. 2. You cannot make major modifications to the apartment, such as paint the walls with alternating pink and black stripes. 3. You cannot start an open fire inside your apartment and roast marshmallows (or anything else). 4. You cannot keep a tiger, lion, elephant, or alligator in the apartment. If you violate the terms of the lease, you face certain penalties, enforced through the courts (hopefully). Does the landlord have video cameras installed the apartment, with round-the-clock surveillance, to make sure you are living up to your contractual obligations? No, usually not. In fact, in most jurisdictions, the landlord has only very limited rights to enter the apartment, under specific conditions that seldom apply. Contracts routinely depend on the parties having "good faith," with voluntary compliance as the default behavior. This approach works especially well when the parties have an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship of some kind. For example, software vendors and licensees typically have some sort of support and subscription agreement. There are also what are known as "due diligence" checks, before you do business with someone. A landlord might run a credit check before renting an apartment. A software vendor might check with Dun & Bradstreet or some other firm to verify creditworthiness. And vice versa. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy Sipples IT Architect Executive, Industry Solutions, IBM z Systems, AP/GCG/MEA E-Mail: sipp...@sg.ibm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to lists...@listserv.ua.edu with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
