begin  quoting Gabriel Sechan as of Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 02:01:10AM -0500:
> >From: Stewart Stremler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> >Well, with App P, there's a legally recognized entity that I can sue
> >if it turns out they provided me with malware; with App O, I have no
> >idea _who_ would be responsible, aside from myself for failing to
> >audit and peer review umpty-thousand lines of code.
> 
> Read the EULA.

Ultimately meaningless.

>                 All closed source companies expressly deny all warranty, 

And open-source doesn't?

And what color is the sky in your alternate reality again?

> including the warranty of merchantability (basicly, the promise that they 
> didn't lie and it does what they told you).  Sorry, no can sue.
 
You can _always_ sue. . . so long as there's someone to sue.

There are some rights you can't give up.

[snip]
> Have you tried to sue someone lately?  I garuntee you an audit is cheaper.

I guarantee you otherwise, if you want a decent audit.  If you want a
half-assed audit, then sure, that would be cheaper. Once. Maybe twice.

Of course, every time someone makes a change to the code, you have to
audit the software *again*.  And because open-source software generally
suffers from dependency hell, you have to audit damn near *everything*.
Every time someone makes a change, somewhere.

> In addition, if its open source, a lot of people are using it, and some 
> fraction of them *will* examine the code, mainly to audit it.  Any huge 
> problem will come out then.  I trust that a lot more than I do Company 
> Foo's internal processes.

I've been looking at open-source code lately, and y'know what, it ain't
any better than what I see anywhere else.  Granted, I don't see but a
tiny fraction of "closed source", but I suspect it's all crappy code,
open *or* closed.  Most programmers are lazy, busy, overloaded, and
mostly interested in the neat stuff and "Getting It To Work".

-Stewart "Don't like bullshit even if my own side serves it up" Stremler


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