Jefferson Usage Agreement

Basic Rules

1. You get what you pay for. Our network is administered by volunteers, and our servers are hosted by volunteers, so we really can't make any guarantees about anything. Our administrators do rely on the service for their daily work, and thus have a strong motive to fix something if it breaks, but often they cannot respond instantaneously. If you are using your Jefferson account for mission-critical operations, you should consider switching to a commercial service.
   
   
2. DO NOT give out your password to other people. Repeat: DO NOT give out your password to other people, even people you trust. Giving other people your password introduces serious security problems and is grounds for termination of your account. (You can change your password by typing "passwd". Note that some of the servers have different password databases.)
   
   
3. Your bandwidth and disk usage must be "reasonable". This is somewhat subjective, but some good warning signs of overusage are:
   
   
   • if you get more than 100 e-mail messages a day
   • if your web site is getting more than 100 visitors per day
     
   • if you are serving large files (e.g. ZIP archives) to the general public
   • if your disk usage is over 200MB. (You can measure this by typing "du -s ~", and you can see the overall disk usage by typing "df".)
     
     
   Careless actions on your part can result in headaches and extra labor for our system administrators. The administrators are ordinary humans with limited patience, who have graciously donated their time to maintaining this system. Don't make their job more difficult than it needs to be!

4. Do not tell other people to ask for Jefferson accounts. At the very least, ask an administrator's permission first. We have very limited resources, and we cannot offer accounts to the general public. For security reasons, we typically do not give accounts to people unless they are personally known by at least one Jefferson administrator.
   
   
5. Keep backup copies of any files which are important to you. If the server crashes and all your files are lost, there is nothing we can do about this. We are not liable for any bad things that happen to your data (see #10 and #11 below).
   
   
6. Don't keep private things on our server. If hacker gains access to our system and posts your files or e-mail messages on the web, we can't accept liability. (Remember also that e-mail is legally considered to be a "public medium". For example, copies of your messages are sometimes sent to administrators if an error prevents them from being delivered.) The Jefferson administrators respect your privacy, but we cannot guarantee it. Even if one of our volunteers acts irresponsibly, WE ARE NOT LIABLE.
   
   
7. Do not use your account for illegal, offensive, or unscrupulous purposes. Jefferson Systems is actually quite libertarian regarding this stuff, but the people who host our servers typically have stricter requirements. Use your head, and don't get us into trouble!
   
   

Legal Boilerplate

8. INDEMNITY: You agree to indemnify and hold Jefferson, and its volunteers, affiliates, agents, or other partners, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of your your use of the service, your connection to the service, your violation of the Usage Agreement, or your violation of any rights of another.
   
   
9. TERMINATION: You may terminate this agreement at any time by requesting an authorized Jefferson administrator delete your account. You agree that Jefferson, in its sole discretion, may revoke your account and remove or discard any files, e-mail, web pages, or other data stored on our servers, at any time and for any reason whatsoever.
   
   
10. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES: YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT:
    
    
    1. YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS. JEFFERSON EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
    2. JEFFERSON MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (i) THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS, (ii) THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE, (iii) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE SERVICE WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, (iv) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, INFORMATION, OR OTHER MATERIAL PURCHASED OR OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH THE SERVICE WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS, AND (v) ANY ERRORS IN THE SOFTWARE WILL BE CORRECTED.
    3. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM JEFFERSON OR THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE USAGE AGREEMENT.
    
    
11. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT JEFFERSON SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES (EVEN IF JEFFERSON HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES), RESULTING FROM: (i) THE USE OR THE INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE; (ii) THE COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS AND SERVICES RESULTING FROM ANY GOODS, DATA, INFORMATION OR SERVICES PURCHASED OR OBTAINED OR MESSAGES RECEIVED OR TRANSACTIONS ENTERED INTO THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICE; (iii) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR DATA; (iv) STATEMENTS OR CONDUCT OF ANY THIRD PARTY ON THE SERVICE; OR (v) ANY OTHER MATTER RELATING TO THE SERVICE.
    
    
12. EXCLUSIONS AND LIMITATIONS: SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. ACCORDINGLY, SOME OF THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.