Sage News and Discussion

Has anyone seen this in the Sage license agreement before? I'm unsure whether this is a new common license agreement or if it could be a license agreement for only one product (I don't think they mention any products within the agreement). Here's the full agreement (and I've copied the portion that I'm curious to know if anyone has spotted this previously). http://na.sage.com/sage-na/eula/~/media/Category/SNA/Assets/Documents/EULA/Sage_End_User_License_Agreement_EULA.pdf

I don't remember seeing it before, but Langner made reference that they were looking at adding that into the subscription version of Sage 100.

Agreed. I am looking to see if this is the first time the phrase appeared. I don't look over this license agreement all that often. Sage have clearly talked about implementing this for quite some time -- all the way back to when they first rolled out EES.

I always wondered what our liability is here? Do you have your clients read the EULA and sign off on it? Should we?

Isn't it linked in the software somehow? It's a good question because if Sage is changing and non-payment is now going to shut down the software - I could see a strong argument for getting a customer acknowledgement -- especially on an upgrade.

The only time you see the EULA is during software installation. So, the customer would only see it if they installed it. Not sure how many times that happens. I think a customer could use it to their advantage. ""John installed it. I never saw it or agreed to it.

Perhaps we should include a link to the license agreement from Sage as part of our agreements - both for upgrades and support.

@JohnShaver - I agree. I don't want this advantage being used to throw us under the bus though. Particularly for the more litigious end users out there ""if it pleases the court, the unscrupulous Sage partner accepted the license agreement on behalf of but unbeknownst to my client and that partner now owes for business interruption and all damages pertaining to locked software.

A few years ago I recall reading about a suit where the customer claimed the VAR accepted the license agreement (during installation) on their behalf. Ever since, I forward a pdf of the EULA along with the engagement letter.

Note: I'm reviewing 4.5 and you can get to the license agreement from Help - About - View The End User License Agreement. This appears to point to: C:\...\MAS90\Launcher\html\license.htm I think I'll add boilerplate similar to: You are responsible for reviewing and agreeing to all terms of the Sage End User License Agreement which may be viewed within the Sage 100 ERP software by navigating to the help menu - selecting About and ""View The End User License Agreement"". It is solely your responsibility to review and agree to the terms contained in the Sage license agreement which may change from time to time as each software upgrade is applied. Should you have any questions please contact Sage directly at 800-854-3415 before beginning use of the software.

Relative to this, all of the other vendors we work with require the customer to sign the EULA as part of closing the sale, which removes us from any liability in the 'click through' install.

It's possible that Sage will go to requiring a signature. We may face an issue on upgrades. What if Sage 100 2013 implements expiring unlock keys?

People will stop upgrading.

Another possibility is that they may require new unlocking keys upon expiration, like HTI did. Once the expiration date passed, you were no longer able to access the module. You had to contact them and enter a new key.

They should have done this 5 years ago and they would not have the dilema that they do now -- -which is I assume not wanting to permanently lose a customer who leaves and goes to QuickBooks and cannot be upsold to another add-in or integration.

@MarkKotyla do you have a reference to that case?

They can't do that, without being sued out of the distance. The existing you love is not make this a rental software it makes it a perpetual license.

@DawnAnastasi Sorry, no. To me, I didn't matter if the customer prevailed or not. Having to defend yourself is painful enough. Additionally, if you're unlucky enough to have sold an enhancement like JobOps, you may have to defend the enhancement developer as well.

I just sold a subscription plan a couple weeks ago - Sage required a signed EULA before they would process the sale.

Smart - does this look like the agreement that they provided?

Exactly.

I still think it's a good idea to have the customer sign the EULA each time an Agree button needs to be pushed. Sage will probably continue to make changes to the EULA and, of course, not bother to tell us.

It's somewhat problematic when doing upgrades remotely but I think you are all right and that we should get these EULA signatures during new and upgrades. At the very least - and I'm sure this is weak - an email acknowledgement of the new EULA.

When we first started, we actually built the EULA into our contract for hosting. Then we stopped as we picked up multiple products. I think we may add it back in for hosting customers.

This EULA now appears to be linked on the Sage web site - http://na.sage.com/sage-na/eula/#erp There are also supplemental licenses for each product. It's unclear to me whether the portion that talks about expiring registration keys would apply to even non-subscription purchased software or whether it would apply to existing users.

I am not a lawyer - but as near as I can tell that's a new EULA - there are a few Sage 100 specific terms that are shown on the page however it looks like Sage now has one common EULA.