Derek Martin wrote:
> Tort law is tort law. What's the difference? If
> Microsoft's products (or any other software company's,
> for that matter) cause you to lose time/money/resources,
> why can't they be held accountable? It just doesn't
> make any sense.
What makes this well-stated thought ammusing is that many
management-types buy this software becuase they are of the mindset that
"Since we payed for it, we can sue them if anything goes wrong". This
has recently been disproved in a case where a company LOST $1.95
*MILLION* because the software that they used 1) didn't do what it said
and 2) had some major bugs in it. Becuase of these things, they lost a
ton of actual cash, not to mention the future revenue that they will
lose because of a damaged reputation. But, well, all they were entitled
to was the price that they paid for the software and absolutly NO
damages. So, where does the management mindset come from? It's quite
apparent that these software companies can produce unacceptably bad
software, lie about what it does or how secure it is, and you have
absolutly no recourse. There is absolutly no accountability in
commercial software, and if there is a problem with it, there is no way
for you to fix it. With OSS, if there's a bug, you can at least look at
the code and make it work.
Kenny
PS The story is located at :
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/news/local/html98/wrap05m_20000505.html
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