Hi dirk, Thank you for this clarification. I appreciate your thoughtful and detailed reply. I have forwarded this information on to our legal department, and I hope they make the right decision. Regardless, I find Versions indispensable and forked over my own cash to buy it while the lawyers bore us all to death. :)
Peace, Chris On Fri, Oct 16, 2009 at 11:32 AM, Dirk Stoop <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Chris, > > Regarding the collected information, I think you are referring to the > "Technical and Related Information" section of the license agreement. > > There is a clause in there mentioning that we may not use the > information in a way that personally identifies you or your computer. > I understand that from a US legal perspective the whole of that > article might be construed ambiguiosly, to not clearly exclude Sofa > from being able and allowed to identify what repositories you are > working on. From a Dutch legal perspective however there is always a > large criterion of reasonability that is applicable to any legal > disputes (that's one reason you won't find as many "and/or"s and > "including but not limited to"s in Dutch contracts in contrast to US > contracts), meaning that if we were to ever claim in court that the > EULA gives us the right to know what repositories someone's working > on, it would be highly unlikely for a judge to rule in our favor given > the intent and purpose of Versions. > > That article is not intended to give us a free pass to spy on Versions > users and we would absolutely never do such a thing. I'll try to work > in an amendment to the agreement in a future release that makes this > more explicit, as I'm sure that'll make more people feel more > comfortable when they click on the "Agree" button, although strictly > speaking there is no tangible legal need to do so. > > This also brings me more or less to your next question, about > applicable law. Given the difference in how legal concepts are > construed under different legislations (this difference is > particularly notable between Dutch and US law, not to speak of the > unique oddities of Californian law) changing the applicable law of our > EULA would mean we'd have to pretty much rewrite the whole thing. It > would also mean that any conflict we may ever enter into would have to > be resolved in a Dutch court that has no expertise in US law, or on > (for us) the other side of the ocean. Because one important purpose > of the EULA for us is to be able to protect our intellectual property > rights against possible infringers, such a change would be seriously > impractical for us; it would effictively make taking action against > such infringers too expensive to pursue in a lot of cases. For those > reasons, we will not change under which legislation the EULA should be > construed. I hope your legal department understands. > > If you'd like to continue the conversation, please feel free to email > me directly at [email protected]. I doubt that many others on the > Versions group will find this topic insanely interesting. ;) > > All the best, > - Dirk > > the Versions team > > On Oct 13, 7:34 pm, Chris <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, our legal department is blocking us from buying Versions until it can > > determine a couple things: > > > > First thing: > > > > In your terms of use it says that you may use information submitted from > us > > for certain purposes(I'm paraphrasing here). We need to be sure that any > > information which identifies projects being worked on, which are > > confidential, are not having any information submitted to Sofa. Things > such > > as repo names, etc. I'm pretty sure that this isn't happening, just > wanted > > to clarify. > > > > Second thing: > > Sofa is in Holland, and we are in the US. Does Sofa accept the Terms of > Use > > to be subject to US Law? Specifically California or New York. > > > > Thanks, > > Chris Hill > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Versions" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/versions?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
