From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.5 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_05 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6b24e52e7dcae753 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-07-02 05:53:56 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!postnews1.google.com!not-for-mail From: billtate@usermail.com (W D Tate) Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Software Liability Date: 2 Jul 2002 05:53:56 -0700 Organization: http://groups.google.com/ Message-ID: References: NNTP-Posting-Host: 208.146.132.2 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: posting.google.com 1025614436 20891 127.0.0.1 (2 Jul 2002 12:53:56 GMT) X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com NNTP-Posting-Date: 2 Jul 2002 12:53:56 GMT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:26807 Date: 2002-07-02T12:53:56+00:00 List-Id: "Robert C. Leif" wrote in message news:... [snip] > > NEW YORK (Reuters) - Software bugs are not just annoying or > inconvenient. They're expensive. > According to a study by the U.S. Department of Commerce's National > Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the bugs and glitches cost > the U.S. economy about $59.5 billion a year. [snip] > If software makers were held liable, the cost to consumers would rise > dramatically, said Marc E. Brown, a partner at the Los Angeles law firm > of McDermott, Will & Emery. > This is the same apocalyptic argument that industry made wrt complying with environmental regulations in the U.S. History, however, demonstrated that these regulations compelled corporations to find new efficiencies, eliminate wastestreams &/or inefficient operations which ultimately led to lower costs and, in some instances, a competitive advantage. What this attorney appears to be suggesting (implicitly) is that companies enjoy lower costs (i.e., life-cycle) for pushing out poorly designed & implemented software. IMO many companies don't have a first clue as to what their "real" costs would be if they were to design/implement software that held up after n-generations. Examples... A well-established commercial numerical analysis package has had numerous "math" related bugs introduced with each subsequent release - bugs that did not exist in prior versions that performed the same mathematical operations. Its gotten to the point that Jack Crenshaw, PhD,(www.embedded.com) has strongly recommended using a version of this software at least 3 to 4 versions earlier. I would be a bit concerned if my "cadillac" product were exhibiting these kinds of persistent problems with every new release. In a company I used to work for the entire codebase was written in C++. After many years, it had reached a point where only 1 or 2 individuals were permitted to "touch" the "core" for fear of breaking something. Mind you this is a company that is #1 in its market (sales ~ $200-300 million/year), serves an industry where security is a "really big deal" and "bugs" cost their end-users "real" money. This company has always had a structured software development process. In 2001, this same company was forced to do a complete re-write of the codebase in order to achieve a "maintainable" state. In either case, its difficult to imagine how one can separate the life-cycle issue (and its associated costs) from the potential "liability" issue. So if we talk about costs, let's compare apples and apples please.