I tried to find a paper I wrote in CS 404 on this subject, but I can't find it, so I'll summarize.
If you are going to hold someone accountable for software bugs, then you have to enforce it on free software too. You can't have classes of software. How do you assess monetary warranties? If you're doing it by the cost of the software alone, what about software that's given away for free from individuals or huge corporations? If it's according to the damage it caused, what if the creator of the software can't afford to pay? How do you determine whose fault it is? For example, suppose the end user used your software in a way that you never conceived of that scrambled his computer? What then? Basically, I think holding software makers accountable sounds good in theory, but hurts us all in practice, especially Linux and free software. I think consumer education and demanding higher quality software will do more to drive the industry than this kind of forced accountability. In life-critical applications (airplanes, medical equipment, etc), special contracts should be created between the software maker and the hospital or airplane manufacturers to ensure that lives are not lost due to bugs. But that's not in the scope of most consumer software that you're talking about. My paper was much more elegant than my post tonight; I'll send it to you if I can find it. Michael On Tue, 2003-09-16 at 23:32, Andrew Hunter wrote: > Hi. I have been reading up a little on the topic of software > liability. Specifically, it is reasonable to hold software > manufacturers liable for the defects and vulnerabilities in their > software? I would be interested to read opinions on this question. > It seems that some corollary questions are, Is it possible to write a > “perfect” piece of software of any real complexity—like an operating > system or an office suite? Is the manufacturer liable for attacks > made on their software? One comparison on that question was that of > the Firestone tire debacle—they were held liable for the defect in > their product. But the response to this was that it is not > analogous. Rather, to hold a manufacturer like, say, Microsoft liable > for the actions of the Blaster programmer would be inappropriate in > the same way as holding Firestone responsible for someone shooting out > a tire they made. > > > > Anyway, what think ye? > > > > Andrew > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > ____________________ > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list -- Michael Torrie <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ____________________ BYU Unix Users Group http://uug.byu.edu/ ___________________________________________________________________ List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/uug-list
