> I remain at the 'I disagree' stage on this topic.
Disagreement is a sign of a healthy society. ;-)
> Where the box/advertising makes a claim, and that claim is demonstrably false,
> not because of some unique combination of differing hardware, operating
> systems or solar cycles but because there is a shortcoming or failing in the
> implementation of that feature the publisher failed to mention, the buyer
> should be entitled to recover the cost of the software AND any other costs
> incurred in the process of discovering that the shortcoming was such as to
> render the software unsatisfactory for his purposes. I also belive that this
> final requirement is only fair as well - the user should be able to
> demonstrate that the shortcoming directly affects the usefulness of the
> software for him, otherwise you would get a string of spurious claims for
> esoteric, unnecessary features not working as advertised.
I've many wonderfully pragmatic issues with your scenario, but I'll try to
keep them relatively short.
Define, in a legal sense:
"demonstrably false"
"unique combination"
"shortcoming or failing"
"unsatisfactory"
"esoteric, unnecessary features"
1) E'rage claims to support IMAP. However, certain versions of EIMS (an
IMAP server) return "interesting" values in response to certain IMAP
commands.
2) E'rage claims to support mail filters. However, if you have more than 10
criteria, the application may crash. I believe that this is noted in the
ReadMe.
3) E'rage claims to support "Palm syncing". However, if you have an E'rage
category whose name is longer than 16 characters, things will go awry.
4) E'rage claims to support "Palm syncing". However, if you create too many
categories, only some will be synced with the Palm.
5) E'rage claims to support "Palm syncing". However, if you create the
categories on your Macintosh (and do some other as yet unknown steps), when
you sync with the Palm, you may end up with duplicated items.
Now, considering the above situations.
Which are actionable and which are inconveniences?
If I document the issues and suggest workarounds in a file on the CD, am I
still liable for the costs incurred by the end user to determine that the
software didn't fulfill their needs?
If I document the issues and suggest workarounds in a file available via the
web?
If I document the issues and suggest workarounds in a printout attached to
each box?
There's seemingly an interesting perspective here that software companies
should know all of the bugs beforehand, so they can provide descriptions of
them in the marketing literature and on the product boxes. Doesn't this
strike you as impossible? I mean, do we recall all of the documentation,
literature, and packaging with the discovery of each new bug?
I don't know, maybe I'm just being pragmatic instead of idealistic.
Henceforth I shall sue if the "Purchase by" date on the milk is
inaccurate...
mikel
PS: My box doesn't have any of these claims on it. Really, it's a pretty
bland box...
PPS: I personally consider Palm syncing to be an "esoteric, unnecessary
feature". If I had two Palms, I'd send one to Allen and one to Paul and
unleash a scripting frenzy; but since I've only one, I'm torn...
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