Warranties aren’t common in B2C or cheap boxed software. A few hundred or a few thousand dollars is not worth anyone’s time to negotiate special terms. In big dollar B2B or B2G, software isn’t usually as-is. Contracts are negotiated that specify what will be delivered, and what remediations exist if those deliveries fall short. If you spend 7 or 8 digits on software, you can easily get a warranty.
> your sole remedy will be that VMware shall, at its option,
> make a U.S. Person on U.S. soil available to provide technical support (in the case of non-conformity to the aforementioned Section (b)) or refund the license or service fees you paid
> VMware receives prompt written notice of the non-conformity following delivery (in the case of Software
So,
If the product isn't accessible: they'll write down the way it isn't. Period.
If the product doesn't do what it says it does, and you notice it quickly after purchase: Either 1. they provide technical support, OR 2. they refund your purchase price. And it's VMware who decides.
If the product doesn't do what it says it does, but you don't know until later: You're still screwed.
There is no guarantee of performance or suitability for purpose here. There is no guarantee of fixing anything.
At worst, "you weren't prompt". At best, yes you get your money back. On the average, maybe you're given a phone number to call, and that person will ask if you've rebooted your computer.
This is actually still really bad for risk management; you have no guarantees that anything will keep working, just that after several months of running your platform on this stack, you might get refunded the purchase price. (Which leaves open the question, does that invalidate your software license, and do you now have to emergency migrate to a different stack?)
So, what you said earlier really isn't true:
> For example, if your proprietary software has a bug, you call the developer and demand they come into your office and fix it under warranty.
Also, your earlier
> Doesn’t work that way for some dependency downloaded from GitHub.
The above is true for every single open source dependency you download from Github! You'll be refunded your $0 purchase price, immediately!
My point is, all software warranties tend to be weasel words that don't amount to that much, as far as risk management is concerned. They especially don't usually obligate the seller to fixing anything, at most they undo the purchase.
At most, a warranty failure may have associated damages that could far exceed the purchase price.
(This is why FOSS licenses almost universally disclaim both warranty and liability for damages, rather than ignoring the issue. Refunding the purchase price is not the worst that can happen.)
Usually in very large software purchases, fixing problems is often much cheaper than undoing a purchase.
While technically, you may be able to legally refund a $10,000,000 software purchase in lieu of buying a plane ticket for a developer, in practice, that's not really an option anyone takes.
Sure, sure, now note the part where VMware is not obligated to do either, they can just give you a helpdesk number and drown you in bureaucracy. And that is still only necessary if you noticed the problem "promptly" after delivery.
I think if you want to argue damages is a common contract clause in the software industry, it's only fair I ask you to name examples. Because it really isn't common.
For example, if your proprietary software has a bug, you call the developer and demand they come into your office and fix it under warranty.
Doesn’t work that way for some dependency downloaded from GitHub.