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UCITA Stalled At State Level
OscarGunther writes "Four states have passed anti-UCITA laws and Massachusetts may soon become the fifth. Meanwhile, only two states have adopted the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act, which gives software vendors all the benefits and none of the burdens of the consequences of publishing their software. The details can be found at ComputerWorld and an opinion piece by Frank Hayes can be found here."
You're just dancing around legalisms and technicalities. Software can and is as reliable as it's made by it's developers. It's as provably reliable as it's tested by various testing organizations.
For critical software, somebody needs to be diligent about testing it, no matter if it's commercial closed-source software or home-brew or open-source software.
Software companies may start codifying their testing procedures and start making claims to the letter of their testing standards. I've worked in a company that makes pacemakers, and believe me, there is a testing methodology and it is possible to do thorough testing.
If consumers and software customers 'wise up' as you claim, it won't 'kill' the software vendors. A new layer of much more rigorous testing will just be established to cover the concerns.
There's no 'hell in a handbasket' scenario that ends in the world just adopting 'open source' as a cureall for software defects. Anybody who thinks in such terms needs to stop drinking Raymond's koolaide, and fast.