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=2.4 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_50,REPLYTO_WITHOUT_TO_CC autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: fdb77,d6e21839058e455c,start X-Google-Attributes: gidfdb77,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,23963231b5359f74 X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2001-06-12 18:38:05 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!newsfeed.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!canoe.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!newsfeed.direct.ca!look.ca!newshub2.rdc1.sfba.home.com!news.home.com!news1.rdc1.bc.home.com.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Roedy Green Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada,comp.lang.java.advocacy Subject: Re: software lawsuits Organization: Canadian Mind Products Reply-To: roedy@mindprod.com Message-ID: References: <3b24dc21$1@news.tce.com> <9g33oo$rp$1@nh.pace.co.uk> <3b267365$1@news.tce.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.8/32.548 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 13 Jun 2001 01:38:05 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.76.128.193 X-Complaints-To: abuse@home.net X-Trace: news1.rdc1.bc.home.com 992396285 24.76.128.193 (Tue, 12 Jun 2001 18:38:05 PDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2001 18:38:05 PDT Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:8638 comp.lang.java.advocacy:20917 Date: 2001-06-13T01:38:05+00:00 List-Id: On Tue, 12 Jun 2001 08:34:20 -0500, "Dale King" wrote or quoted : >And I have never seen a license agreement that you >could skip by without actually making a conscious effort to say that you >accept the agreement. The other way around this legal roadblock is if shirking became universal. Ford cars would come with an agreement you had sign with understanding this car was not actually guaranteed to move, or transport humans or cargo. It was a mere formality of course to limit liability in outrageous tire and safety lawsuits. People might start selling software that more blatantly did absolutely nothing, promising it would cure cancer, hypnotise your children into believing in your favoured religion, cure baldness and get you laid. Congress might just get mad enough to close this loophole. Eventually congress would decide enough is enough and force everyone to be liable for making their products perform as advertised or as could reasonably be expected to behave. E.g. kettles should heat water to boiling, cars should survive a 5 MPH crash without self-destructing or killing the occupants, software should not crash all by itself without provable driver error, just like cars. There is the laugh test. Why would anyone pay for software if there was not some implied claim it would do something useful? Perhaps you nail vendors on deceptive advertising. What is cute though is Microsoft seems way ahead of me on this one. You might never guess from their ads that their product is software. You would think it was some mood-elevating mildly-hallucinogenic drug. I suppose though that might be a very easy claim to prove is false. For more detail, please look up the key words mentioned in this post in the Java Glossary at: http://mindprod.com/gloss.html -- Roedy Green, Canadian Mind Products Custom computer programming since 1963. Ready to take on new work.