Re: software suits, was Re: Long names are doom ?

[James Kanze <James.Kanze@dresdner-bank.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:

> Exactly! When you go to buy a house or a used car labeled "as is", a
> court would likely rule that you had reasonable opportunity to
> inspect the house or car and look for flaws & hence could have and
> should have known what you were buying.

Even then, you are protected against hidden flaws.  In particular, at
least in Germany, if the car has been in a major wreck, the seller is
required to inform you about it, and is liable if he doesn't.

That isn't really relevant here, though.  In the case of most
software, the seller *has* told you that they practice absolutly no
quality control measures, and that what they are selling is really
just a pile of shit.  The relevant law here is more related to the
fact that you didn't sign anything, and you probably didn't read
anything even if you could have, and you certainly didn't intend to
sign away all of your rights.

In the end, regardless of contract, a consumer has a certain number of
rights.  Today, many of these are explictly spelled out, but there are
also implicit rights concerning hidden defects, etc.  And I cannot
give these rights away, regardless of what I sign.  If I buy a new
car, and the brakes fail after driving the car 100 meters, then the
vendor is responsible for the accident.  Not just because the car
manufacturer offers a guarantee (none of the guarantees I've seen
include civil responsibility for accidents), but because I have a
legal right to expect the brakes to work.  The legal right is based on
the principle that any reasonable person would expect the brakes to
work on a new car, and not necessarily take any precautions against
the possibility of their not working.

In the case of software, the problem is complicated.  What should a
reasonable person expect?  If the software is seriously deficient,
compared to other, similar products, then I suspect that you would
have a case.  Given the typical quality of shrink wrapped software,
however, it's hard to imagine anything significantly worse.

-- 
James Kanze                               mailto:kanze@gabi-soft.de
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