| I like your anecdote, I might steal that one. IANAL, but I negotiate a lot of enterprise SaaS agreements. When considering the SLA, it is important to remember it is a legal document, not an engineering one. It has engineering impact and is up to engineering to satisfy, but the actual contents of it are better considered when wearing your lawyer hat, not your engineering one. e.g., What you're referring to is related to the limitation of liability clauses and especially "special" or "consequential" damages -- a category of damages that are not 'direct' damages but secondary. [1] Accepting _any_ liability for special or consequential damages is always a point of negotiation. As a service provider, you always try to avoid it because it is so hard to estimate the magnitude, and thus judge how much insurance coverage you need. Related, those paragraphs also contain a limitation of liability clause, often at capped at X times annual cost. Doesn't make much sense to sign up a client for $10k per year but accept $10M+ liability exposure for them. This is just scratching the surface -- tons of color and depth here that is nuanced for every company and situation. It's why you employe attorneys! 1 - https://www.lexisnexis.com/lexis-practical-guidance/the-jour... |
Businesses do this all the time, this is how they make money. And they use a combination of insurance and not %@$#@*! up.