Pete Vincent wrote: > > >Too bad that in the land of hot-coffee-on-your-lap multi-million > >lawsuits, the largest 'producer' of $bn damages can't be sued... > > I think there's a good case for suing for their constant disregard > for even trivially obvious safety issues
Unfortunately, the fine print of M$ sw license agreements excludes any liability for these damages (and that's not even a specialty of M$, but is usual in the sw industry). But who knows, with M$, perhaps those safety loopholes are "a feature, not a bug" after all? (see below) > , but with infinite amounts > of money and armies of legal thugs, Gates owns the courts in the > US, and even the government couldn't afford to sue successfully, > as the pathetic results of the antitrust suit illustrate. Gates having oiled the mills is one aspect. The other (and probably more important) aspect is that the U$ state has an active interest in the continuing dominance of M$: First, as was admitted by the Bush administration even before 9/11, the gov't has a strategic interest in a strong monopoly of a U$ corporation. Second, after 9/11, and with Dubya's new-and-improved police state (keyword "Magic Lantern"), the well-introduced M$ Windoze snoop functions could get whole new applications (in both senses of the term) -- keep in mind that Win XP is "calling home" (to M$ and all kinds of sites) all the time, e.g. whenever the user consults the electronic manual (and that's pretty often in Windoze), without even notifying the user. Win XP also has nice features such as "automatic update" which allow M$ to substitute, alter or even de-activate the user's device drivers, again without notifying the user. And the various safety loopholes in Windoze will make sure that not only M$ and the N$A have these abilities to snoop and modify users' harddisks, but also that assorted script-kiddies and hackers will have that ability (probably even better than M$/N$A). Orwell couldn't have dreamed of the possibilities... Chris
