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Software Customer Bill of Rights
Cem Kaner of Badsoftware.com has written up a Software Customer Bill of Rights. Very appropriate considering our recent stories about Microsoft viruses, Dell's BIOS-clickwrap licensing agreement, etc.
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Regards,
A Fan
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Yeah, it's fashionable to want to sue Bill, but what if some guy creates some virus that brings a Linux system down to it's knees? Who do we sue? Linus? OSDL? Or will there be a double standard? Remember, if Bill gets to be sued, be prepared for your favorite OSS house to be liable as well. Otherwise it's just sheer hypocrisy to target MS. And remember, MS is made of of coders who went to the same schools as you. Contrary to OSS opinion, Bill does not write every single line of code in the products nowadays.
It protects the rights of terrorists.
if you don't like it, the don't use it.
and fuck your lame microshit kissing ass
I wouldn't hesitate to fuck my 17-year old pretty little sister if she just were interested in a little bit of "family fun". Unfortunately I think she's a dyke. I once caught her and her best girlfriend on a couch looking all flushed, hot and bothered and extremely annoyed at me for running in "unannounced" while they were "watching TV". Yeah, right. Whatever, sis.
1. Let the customer see the contract before the sale.
When was the last time you saw a contract on a loaf of bread at the supermarket before you bought it? There is a certain norm when buying a loaf of bread and there is a norm when buying mass-market software. Deal with it. If you really want to see a license before you buy, I challenge you to find a company that won't let you see one if you call their headquarters or whatever first and I challenge you to find a bread company that WILL.
2. Disclose known defects.
This bread may not be as tasty as (competitor's bread. We use inferior wheat.). It is naive and at cross purposes to think a publisher will do this--for mass market software, this is clearly the role of the press.
3. The product (or information service) must live up to the manufacturer's and seller's claims.
This is a) well covered under existing law b) see a. Disagree? Sue, and you'll win if you're right.
4. User has right to see and approve all transfers of information from her computer.
A naive and shortsighted idea. Shortsighted because it begins with the notion of "computer", as if a computer is a basestation on which the modal form of activity is to install software from boxes or whathave you. This might not be the case in 10-20 years, so the very concept of "see and approve" is ludicrous. This also doesn't say anything about granularity - will a "can this computer do periodic checks of itself" over the internet be sufficient? If no, then you very quickly get into absurdities. At any rate, why is this a "right" rather than a nicety? Why can't the market handle this? Don't buy from companies whose security implementations you don't trust.
5. A software vendor may not block customer from accessing his own data without court approval.
You're saying i can't sell somebody a word processor with a one year time limit? Why the hell can't I? If the market doesn't go for such a thing, then that's their choice.. not for some laws to ourlaw.
6. A software vendor may not prematurely terminate a license without court approval.
I don't quite know what this is in response to, but under current law a vendor (of software or whatever) can't do this without cause and at all times this can be contested legally. What's your point?
7. Mass-market customers may criticize products, publish benchmark study results, and make fair use of a product.
"Make fair use of" is some sort of codeword for something here. Of course they can make "fair use" of in a legal sense, but what "fair use" means is how it has been interpreted. Just because you may disagree is, well, sucks to be you. "May criticize..", yes, unless they explicitly sign away those rights. Nobody sticks a gun to their head to buy the softwarein the first place or to agree to such a license. If there is such a license in which you agree not to criticize the software in a license that you get to read only after you crack open the non-returnable shrinkwrap, i've never heard of it.
8. The user may reverse engineer the software.
This "right", as written, is too broad to be meaningful. IP restrictions are done in the spirit of social contract.. for example, we all agree for the most part that books can be copyrighted for x amount of time because that will give authors incentive to write more books and so forth. now, some of you may complain that this is a ploy by the publishing mafia, but, i assure you, you are fringe idiots if you think this this. the rest of society realizes that copyrights on, say, books, have been a good thing, plus or minus a few borderline questions as to term limits that are really fringe issues. likewise what few anti-reverse engineering rules there are vis-a-vis software have been put in place to allow certain types of businesses to exist that wouldn't otherwise. this benefits not just those businesse
The shrinkwrap is a contract. If you don't like the terms, don't sign/open/whatever. Writing software is hard work and there's nothing that magically gives you rights over something I built. You don't like it? Write your own.
Note however the recent Dell fiasco of a contract whose terms you can't review is indeed broken.