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Comment by tiffanyh | Hacker News Reader

What's the "Explain-Like-I'm-5" version of Oregon's case?

I ask because many software companies include clauses in their software agreements that state they are not liable for software defects or damages.

Those kind of clauses seems to nullify any case I could foresee someone making against Oracle (regardless if you like Oracle or not).

Edit: fixed typo

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The ELI5 I could glean from it was that Oracle's development and management of the project was pervasively bad, and more importantly that they continually lied and covered up information over the course of the project, misleading the state over the past three years while taking more control over the project whenever they could.

This summarizing statement says it quite succinctly:

"In effect, Oracle used its purported superior expertise, coupled with lies and pressing deadlines, to trap the State and Cover Oregon in a deadly spiral: at each juncture Oracle charged more and Oregon got less."

So this is a consulting services lawsuit, not a product lawsuit. Interesting.

Not to sound insensitive to Oregon, but simply speaking as someone who deals with contracts from major software vendors regularly, I still don't see what legal standing Oregon will have against Oracle.

I saw this because major system integrator's structure their contracts in one of two ways:

(1) Staff Augmentation. This construct clearly states the implementer (e.g. Oracle) is there simply to provide an expert service and no deliverable's are being defined and no responsibility is on the implementer to "complete" any work. You're essentially just paying an hourly rate for an consultant and that consultant is under your direction (as such, 0 liability in on the implementer).

(2) Fixed Fee Deployments. This construct clearly articulates deliverable's and earn-out. Once the implementer successful completes a predefined milestone, the implementer will earn-out a predefined amount. In this construct, the only liability the implementer burdens is the labor to achieve the milestone and typically they can disengage at anytime.

In both contract types, it clearly states the implementer is not responsible for damages, missed deadlines, etc.

So again, I'm curious to know how Oregon is going to win this case.

Disclaimer: IANAL

Oregon's case is that Oracle claimed their products worked together and could be merely configured to suit +95% of the state's requirements. That proved to be untrue. (It always does with COTS software, but it's the siren's call.) On top of that, OCS was incompentent. It's not a staff-aug vs. fixed fee case (and there are many other commercial models in SI land) -- Oregon is alleging straight up fraud and a RICO case.

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