RE: Faulty languages and Liability

["Robert C. Leif" <rleif@rleif.com>]

From: Bob Leif
To: Hyman Rosen,
The Ariane 5 was a design defect. The code produced an error exactly as
specified. I would consider the actions of some individuals on the
Ariane 5 project to be negligence. They specified that code be reused
without checking if it still modeled the physics of the system. However,
this is a question of French law of which I know very little. 

US Government mandates are usually not as effective as legal actions.
The employees of US enforcement agencies do not work on commission.

-----Original Message-----
From: comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org
[mailto:comp.lang.ada-admin@ada.eu.org] On Behalf Of Hyman Rosen
Sent: Sunday, June 16, 2002 4:53 AM
To: comp.lang.ada@ada.eu.org
Subject: Re: Faulty languages and Liability

Robert C. Leif wrote:
> I was hoping to find a lawyer to speak on software product liability

It's a pretty sad state of affairs when you are reduced to trying
to force people to use Ada at the point of a gun. And of course
that *was* tried with the govenrnment mandate and it failed.

I also point out to you that when your house is broken into or your
car is stolen, you're not going to have any luck suing the makers
of the locks.

If I was sued becuase I didn't use Ada, I would point out to the
jury the results of using Ada on the Ariane 5. You may think it's
unfair, but, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, my worthy opponent
wants my client to use software which demonstrably resulted in
millions of dollars of damage and loss.