ABSTRACT
Introduction Types of Contract There are a wide range of contracts that can relate to computer hardware and software, including: contracts for the sale or lease of hardware, or of a hardware and software package; contracts licensing software; contracts for the maintenance of hardware or software (or support contracts); distribution agreements between manufacturers and distributors of software or hardware; and bureau services contracts, under which one party that has computer hardware and software supplies computer services or facilities to a party that does not have its own hardware or software. Detailed discussion of each of these would (and does) merit a separate book. 1 Thus, this chapter and the fi rst half of the next are concerned primarily with the key issues that may arise in relation to contracts concerned with computer software.
