Engineering X Terms of Use

In these Terms of Use (hereafter “Agreement” or “Terms”), “we,” ”us,” “our,” and “Company” will refer collectively to Harness Inc., located at 55 Stockton St., 8th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94108 and its affiliates. The terms “you,” and “your” will refer to you, the user (“User”). By accessing or using the Website, or clicking “I Agree”, “Sign Up” or “Get Access” you agree to be bound by these Terms.  If you do not agree to be bound by these Terms, you should immediately leave this Website and not return. 

When we refer to the “Website” in these Terms, we mean all articles, links, URLSs, websites, blogs, information, data, and any other content provided by the Company from https://www.engineeringx.org.

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1. Who May Use the Website

You may only use the Website if you agree to form a binding contract with the Company and are not a person barred from using the Website under the laws of the applicable jurisdiction. In any case, you must be at least 18 years old to use the Website. If you are accepting these Terms and using the Website on behalf of a company, organization, government, or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you are authorized to do so and have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms, in which case the words “you” and “your” as used in these Terms shall refer to that entity.

2. Privacy

Our Privacy Statement (located at https://www.harness.io/legal/privacy) describes how we handle the information you provide to us when you use the Website. You understand that through your use of the Website you consent to the collection and use of this information, including the transfer of this information to the United States, and/or other countries for storage, processing, and use by Harness and its affiliates.

3. Ownership

The Website and its content, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, logos, software, information, articles, data, code, blogs, articles, event descriptions, models, or any other materials or information posted via the Website or obtained by you through the Website (collectively, the “Content”), are the property of the Company or its licensors and are protected by intellectual property laws.  You are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and use the Website for internal purposes in accordance with this Agreement. Unless otherwise agreed by you and the Company under other license terms, you agree not to reproduce, distribute, modify, sell, re-sell, or create derivative works of any Content from the Website without the prior written consent of the Company.  Nothing in these Terms gives you any ownership rights in any of the Company’s intellectual property including but not limited to the Company’s Content.

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4. Content on the Website 
   

Your use or reliance on any Content or Contributions (as defined below) posted via the Website or obtained by you through the Website is at your own risk. We do not endorse, support, represent or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any third party submitted content or communications posted via the Website or endorse any third party opinions expressed via the Website. You understand that by using the Website, you may be exposed to Contributions that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive. 

We reserve the right to remove Contributions that violate these Terms, including for example, copyright or trademark violations or other intellectual property misappropriation, impersonation, unlawful conduct, or harassment. 

If you believe that your Contribution has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please report this by contacting our designated copyright agent at:

Harness Inc.
Attn: Copyright Agent
55 Stockton St. 8th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
Email: legalnotices@harness.io

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5. Membership 

• Registration: In order to become a member of the Website, you must create a user account ("Account"), which requires you to provide accurate, complete, and up-to-date information.  You are solely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your Account credentials and for all activities that occur under your Account.  You may close your Account at any time by emailing members@engineeringx.org. You represent and warrant that any information that you provide in connection with your use of the Website is and shall remain true, accurate, and complete, and that you will maintain and update such information regularly.  You agree that if any information that you provide is or becomes false, inaccurate, obsolete or incomplete, Harness may terminate your use of the Website.  You agree to be responsible for all action taken using your account, whether authorized by you or not.  You agree to notify the Company immediately if you suspect your account has been compromised. You are responsible for safeguarding your account, so use a strong password and limit its use to this Account.  The Company may restrict, suspend, or close your Account on the Website, or revoke membership privileges according to its policy for handling copyright-related takedown requests, or if the Company reasonably believes that you’ve violated any of these Terms.

• Access and Use: Upon becoming a member, you will have access to certain features and Content on the Website, as determined by the Company based on the level of membership granted. You acknowledge and agree that membership benefits are subject to change, modification, or termination at the Company's sole discretion without notice.

• Membership Tiers:  Members will be classified into the following tiers and receive the following benefits, which may change over time:

1. Core:  Core members are only appointed by the Company.  However, Core Members can appoint Charter members, and will have access to all the materials and events made available on the Website. 
2. Charter:  Charter members will have access to all the materials and events made available on the Website. 
3. Standard:  Standard members will have access to all the materials and events made available on the Website. 

• Use of Member Information and Likeness:  By becoming a member, you grant the Company the right and license to use your name, contact information, photos, and likeness for the purposes of promotion, marketing, and advertising, including but not limited to online publication on the Website and social media platforms.  Additionally, once you register your Account and become a member, your name, company and role will automatically be added to our Members page located at https://engineeringx.org/members. The Company may also add your picture from Linkedin or other public websites to your information on the Members page.

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6. Acceptable Use 

You agree not to use, and not to encourage or allow any third party to use, the Website in the following prohibited ways:

• Encouraging (i) any illegal, fraudulent, or abusive activities or (ii) materially interfering with the business or activities of the Company.
• Buying, selling, or otherwise trading in user names or other unique identifiers on the Website.
• Sending advertisements, chain letters, or other solicitations through the Website, or use the Website to gather addresses or other personal data for commercial mailing lists or databases.
• Automating access to the Website, or monitoring the Website, such as with a web crawler, browser plug-in or add-on, or other computer program that is not a web browser. 
• Using the Website to send emails to distribution lists, news groups, or group mail aliases.
• Contacting any Website members for commercial purposes.  
• Falsely implying that you are affiliated with or endorsed by the Company.
• Hyperlinking to images or other non-hypertext content on the Website on other webpages.
• Removing any marks indicating proprietary ownership from materials you download from the Website.
• Showing any part of the Website on other websites with <iframe>.
• Disabling, avoiding, or circumventing any security mechanism or access restrictions of the Website.
• Straining infrastructure of the Website with an unreasonable volume of requests, or requests designed to impose an unreasonable load on information systems underlying the Website.
• Using the Website, or any files, data, software, or other materials received from the Website, in violation of any applicable license, law or regulation.
• Impersonating others through the Website.
• Encouraging or helping anyone to violate these Terms.
• Using or trying to use another’s account on the Website without their specific permission.
• Reverse-engineering the Website in order to find limitations, vulnerabilities, or evade filtering capabilities.
• Launching or facilitating, whether intentionally or unintentionally, a denial of service attack on any of the Website or any other conduct that materially and adversely impacts the availability, reliability, or stability of the Website.
• Transmitting any material, data, or content that contains viruses, Trojan horses, spyware, worms or any other malicious, harmful, or deleterious programs.
• Violating or facilitating the violation of any applicable laws or regulations of any applicable jurisdiction.
• Using the Website to transmit any material or content that is, facilitates, or encourages libelous, defamatory, discriminatory, or otherwise malicious or harmful speech or acts to any person or entity, including but not limited to hate speech, and any other material or content that Company reasonably believes degrades, intimidates, incites violence against, or encourages prejudicial action against anyone based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, geographic location or other protected category.
• Submitting content to the Website that violates the law, infringes anyone’s intellectual property rights, violates anyone’s privacy, or breaches agreements you have with others.
• Submitting content to the Website as a mere placeholder, to hold a particular address, user name, or other unique identifier; or
• Use the Website to disclose information that you don’t have the right to disclose, like others’ confidential or personal information.

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7. Enforcement

The Company may investigate and prosecute violations of these Terms to the fullest legal extent. The Company may notify and cooperate with law enforcement authorities in prosecuting violations of the law and these Terms.  The Company reserves the right to change, redact, and delete content on the Website for any reason. If you believe someone has submitted content to the Website in violation of these Terms, please contact us immediately.

8. Contributions
   

You are responsible for your use of the Website and for any Contributions (defined below) you provide, including compliance with applicable laws, rules, and regulations. You should only provide Contributions that you are comfortable sharing with others.

Unless otherwise agreed to by you and Harness in writing or under separate terms, by uploading, e-mailing, posting, submitting, publishing or otherwise transmitting information, data, models, modifications, software, event types, tags, comments, code, suggestions, or other materials to the Website or Harness (each a “Contribution”), you hereby acknowledge that such Contribution is non-confidential and automatically grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) to Harness a perpetual, irrevocable, world-wide, non-exclusive, sublicensable, fully paid-up and royalty-free license to use, make, have made, copy, distribute, perform, display (whether publicly or otherwise), modify, adapt, publish, and transmit such Contributions in any form, medium, or technology now known or later developed, and to grant to others rights to do any of the foregoing. Such use by Company, is made with no compensation paid to you with respect to the Contributions that you submit, post, transmit or otherwise make available through the Website as you agree that using the Website is sufficient compensation for any Contributions and grant of rights.  

In addition, you represent and warrant that all so-called moral rights in the Contributions have been waived. For each Contribution, you represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary for you to grant the licenses granted in this Section, and that such Contribution, and your provision thereof to and through the Website, complies with all applicable laws, rules and regulations. Harness cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with this Section.  Harness will pre-screen, review, and approve Contributions, and Harness reserves the right to refuse or delete any Contributions in its discretion. You acknowledge and agree that Harness reserves the right (but has no obligation) to do one or more of the following in its discretion, without notice or attribution to you:

(i) monitor and approve Contributions as well as your access to the Website;

(ii) alter, remove, or refuse to post or allow to be posted any Contribution; and/or

(iii) disclose any Contributions, and the circumstances surrounding their transmission, to any third party in order to operate the Website, in order to protect Harness, its suppliers or licensees and their respective employees, officers, directors, shareholders, affiliates, agents, representatives, and the Website’s users and visitors; to comply with legal obligations or governmental requests; to enforce these Terms; or for any other reason or purpose.

Harness disclaims any responsibility for the Contributions displayed on its Website and assumes no responsibility for the timeliness, deletion, mis-delivery or failure to store any Contributions or other user information or personalization settings.

Between you and the Company, you remain solely responsible for the Contributions you submit to the Website. You agree not to wrongly imply that Contributions you submit to the Website are sponsored or approved by the Company. Additionally, these Terms do not obligate the Company to store, maintain, or provide copies of the Contributions you submit.

When Contributions you submit are removed from the Website, whether by you or by the Company, the Company’s right to use the Contribution ends when the last copy of such Contribution disappears from the Company’s backups, caches, and other systems. Other licenses or rights you apply to the Contribution you submit, such as Creative Commons or other licenses, may continue after your Contribution is removed. Those licenses may give others, or the Company itself, the right to subsequently share your Contribution through the Website.

9. Engineering Excellence Model, Modifications & Licensing 

As a registered member of this Website, you will receive access to the Engineering Excellence Model (the “Model”), a maturity model that codifies engineering best practices, which is licensed to you under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International Public License (“License”).  The License can be found here.  Modifications to the Model can be submitted to members@engineeringx.org for consideration.  By submitting modifications of the Model to the Company, you grant the Company and any other user a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to use, modify and distribute your modifications under the terms of the License.  Any approved modifications by the Company will be integrated into the Model.  

Users are allowed to use, modify, and distribute the Model, provided users publish those modifications under the same License, and provide attribution to the Company. This ensures that improvements and enhancements to the Model benefit the entire community of users and contributors. 

Additionally, while using the Model, you must comply with all applicable laws and regulations, and these Terms.  Any use of the Model for illegal or unethical purposes, or in violation of these Terms is strictly prohibited. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in revocation of your access to the website, membership, and services. 

You acknowledge that the Model is provided “as is” without warranties of any kind, and the Company and contributors are not liable for any damages or consequences resulting from the use of the Model. 

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10. Indemnification

You agree to hold harmless, defend, and indemnify the Company from all legal claims related to your Contributions, your breach of these Terms, your gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or breach of these Terms by others using your account. The Company agrees to notify you of any legal claims for which you might have to indemnify the Company as soon as possible. If the Company fails to notify you of a legal claim promptly, you won’t have to indemnify the Company for damages that you could have defended against or mitigated with prompt notice. You agree to allow the Company to control the investigation, defense, and settlement of legal claims for which you’re required to indemnify the Company, and to cooperate with those efforts. The Company agrees not to agree to any settlement that admits fault for you or imposes obligations on you without your prior agreement.

11. Disclaimer

Your access to and use of the Website or any content are at your own risk. You understand and agree that the Website is provided to you on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis. COMPANY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. Company makes no warranty or representation and disclaims all responsibility and liability for: (i) the completeness, accuracy, availability, timeliness, security or reliability of the Website, the Model or any Content; (ii) any harm to your computer system, loss of data, or other harm that results from your access to or use of the Website or any of the content; (iii) the deletion of, or the failure to store or to transmit, any content and other communications maintained by the Website; and (iv) whether the Website will meet your requirements or be available on an uninterrupted, secure, or error-free basis. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained from the Company through the Website, will create any warranty or representation not expressly made herein.

12. Limits on Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE COMPANY SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS OR REVENUES, WHETHER INCURRED DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY, OR ANY LOSS OF DATA, USE, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, RESULTING FROM (i) YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF OR INABILITY TO ACCESS OR USE THE WEBSITE; (ii) ANY CONDUCT OR CONTENT OF ANY THIRD PARTY ON THE WEBSITE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY DEFAMATORY, OFFENSIVE OR ILLEGAL CONDUCT OF OTHER USERS OR THIRD PARTIES; (iii) ANY CONTENT OBTAINED FROM THE WEBSITE; OR (iv) UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS, USE OR ALTERATION OF YOUR TRANSMISSIONS OR CONTENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AGGREGATE LIABILITY OF THE COMPANY EXCEED THE GREATER OF ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (U.S. $100.00) OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID COMPANY, IF ANY, IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS FOR ACCESS TO THE WEBSITE GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. THE LIMITATIONS OF THIS SUBSECTION SHALL APPLY TO ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, STATUTE, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE) OR OTHERWISE, AND WHETHER OR NOT THE COMPANY HAVE BEEN INFORMED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SUCH DAMAGE, AND EVEN IF A REMEDY SET FORTH HEREIN IS FOUND TO HAVE FAILED OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE.

13. Feedback

The Company welcomes your Feedback and suggestions relating to the Website. See the Contact section below for ways to get in touch with us.

By providing Feedback, you acknowledge and agree that any questions, comments, suggestions, ideas, feedback or other information about the Website or content (“Feedback”) provided by you is non-confidential and shall become the sole property of the Company. The Company shall have exclusive rights to Feedback, including all intellectual property rights, and shall be entitled to the unrestricted use and dissemination of Feedback for any purpose, commercial or otherwise, without notice, acknowledgment or compensation to you.

14. Termination

Either you or the Company may terminate these Terms at any time. When our Agreement ends, your permission to use the Website and your membership also ends.

You may end your Agreement with Company at any time by deactivating your account(s) (if available) and discontinuing your use of the Website. 

We may suspend or terminate your account or cease providing you with all or part of the Website at any time for any or no reason, including, but not limited to, if we reasonably believe: (i) you have violated these Terms, (ii) you create risk or possible legal exposure for us; (iii) your account should be removed due to unlawful conduct, (iv) your account should be removed due to prolonged inactivity; or (v) our provision of the Website to you is no longer commercially viable. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you by the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account, depending on the circumstances. In all such cases, the Terms shall terminate, including, without limitation, your license to use the Website.  For the avoidance of doubt, these Terms survive the deactivation or termination of your account.

Upon termination of these Terms, the terms of this Section 14, and the terms of the following Sections will survive (i.e. still apply): Section 2 (Privacy), Section 3 (Ownership), 4 (Content on the Website),  Section 6 (Acceptable Use), Section 8 (Contributions), Section 9 (Engineering Excellence Model, Modifications, and Licensing), Section 10 (Indemnification), Section 11 (Disclaimer), Section 12 (Limits on Liability), and Section 15 (General).  

15. General 

These Terms will be governed by and interpreted according to the laws of the State of California without regard to conflicts of laws and principles that would cause the laws of another jurisdiction to apply. Any legal suit, action or proceeding arising out of or related to these Terms or the Website shall be instituted in either the state or federal courts of San Francisco, California, and we each consent to the personal jurisdiction of these courts.

In the event that any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, then that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions of these Terms will remain in full force and effect. Company’s failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be deemed a waiver of such right or provision.

You may not assign your Agreement with the Company. The Company may assign your Agreement to any affiliate or successor of the Company. Any attempted assignment against these terms has no legal effect.  These Terms embody all the terms of agreement between you and the Company about use of the Website and supersede and replace all prior or contemporaneous communications, whether oral or written, between the parties. 

16. Contact

For legal issues, you may notify the Company and send questions to the Company by sending an email to legalnotices@harness.io.  For technical questions, feedback, or comments please send an email to members@engineeringx.org. 

The Company may notify you under these Terms using the e-mail address you provide for your account on the Website, or by posting a message to the homepage of the Website or your account page.

17. Changes

We reserve the right to modify or update these Terms at any time, in our sole discretion. We will try to notify you of material revisions, for example via a Website notification or an email to the email associated with your account. Continued access or use of the Website after such modifications or after such notice constitute your acceptance of the updated Terms. If you do not agree to any modifications or updates, you should stop using the Website.

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Effective: September 20, 2023