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Why Can't Microsoft be Sued Under the Lemon Law?
briant97 asks: "Microsoft is sitting back making all this money by charging for desktop and server operating systems. If you go for a server, they also add additional charges through client access licenses. Well, now that they've charged you all this money they leave their software open to viruses and exploits beyond belief, which will cost your company even more money. When will it stop? When will Microsoft become liable for their actions? I mean they are making billions while costing other companies billions. Ford, Chevy, and all other car manufactures get held liable if they make a defective product, why not Microsoft?" One can argue that you sign away your right to seek damages from Microsoft, by agreeing to the EULA, however there is still this issue as to the strength of a EULA since they've never been tested in court. How do you feel about this subject? Should software owners be allowed to "sign" away their basic rights via click-thru licensing, or should software manufacturers be liable for the critical defects that show up in their software?
My first guess would be because the "Lemon Law" only covers cars.
From http://www.mylemon.com/faq.htm:
What types of products are covered by the Lemon Law ?
All motor vehicles primary used for personal use are covered under the Pennsylvania and New Jersey Lemon Law.
symetrix. We are building a religion, a limited edition.
Just remeber, if Microsoft is held liable for it's products in spite of the EULA, it's only a matter of time before other software comapanies and eventually open source authors will be sued for the same. Are you really so eager to jump headlong into the new world of software liability litigation?
If software had to live up to safety standards the same way physical products did, the authors of the software could be sued just like the makers of the physical products.
"But that's great!" you say. "Microsoft could be sued until they were just bits of blackened rubble!"
Yes, that would be wonderful.
Now, what about the floating-point exception handler bug in Linux? Well, looks like we'd have to sue Linus et al.
I'd be willing to bet that Microsoft would take a lot longer to reduce to rubble than Linus and his ragtag crew of happy software authors.
Even if you limit it only to software that's charged for, well, then, good bye RedHat. Ditto Mandrake. Bye SuSe. It's all over.
Basically, if the authors could be sued, then there would be no software industry.
I know the question was also asking why they couldn't be sued for allowing viruses in. Well, why can't Ford be sued for letting me drive my car on roads? There are *wrecks* on roads! What is Ford thinking??
The point of this whole rant is: Software is far, far to complex to be held to the same standards as physical products. Mankind has been making physical products for around 200,000 years now (if not more). We've been making software for 50. Let's wait until we have the same kind of experience making these products before we hold them to the same standard.
...but it's being eaten...by some...Linux or something...
When desktop and corporate customers are willing to wait 10 years for products that incorporate new technology, we can talk.
Microsoft is being no more negligent than their competitors would be. Businesses recognize the risk of using Microsoft, Apple, Sun, third-party or OSS software, and balance that against their need to actually use recent innovations. The end result, a fast life-cycle on development and rather unreliable products. Businesses suffer losses when software is compromised, but that's built into the cost of getting software years before it could be released otherwise.
If consumer advocacy laws applied to software development right now, you'd see innovation plummet. What few developers that would bother with top-notch reliability (which is comparitively boring) would still take years to create something after the idea was publically announced.
Meanwhile, some black market developers would create the same function in some illegal and wholly unsupported product, but businesses would buy it up like crazy.
The reason that these kinds of regulations are important with cars and pharmaceuticals is that these industries put people at risk to their lives. A flaw in a car will kill people. A flaw in software will cost a company some money, but is a threat that can be overcome through market practices. The company insures against damage, pays a premium, and gets reimbursed on loss. Nobody dies. Big fricking deal.
Businesses where reliability does matter (i.e. infrastructure and medical projects) go further and independently make sure they only use software that has gone through the ropes. This software tends to evolve more slowly, or else has a disproportionate amount of money thrown against it to speed things up.
As an example of why software makers should be held liable, imagine a nuclear power plant being run by some OS. Now imagine that OS has a bug which causes it to crash if certain conditions are met. Now imagine those conditions are met one day, causing the cooling system in the reactor to stop working as it should. I think we all know what happens next...
Which is why Microsoft forbids the use of MS software for such mission critical apps.
If you need an OS to run a nuclear plant, you'll have it custom made, by someone who can be held liable and who'll probably provide the source.
No sig
Think of it like a car.
My 1998 Honda had a problem with the ignition that, if a certain combination of environmental factors, driving habits, and the phases of the moon and planets all combined correctly, the contacts would corrode under the extreme voltage and cut power to the engine while in operation. Their response: Take the car to a dealer to have the ignition switch replaced free of charge.
I.e.: This otherwise safe and well designed car has a small flaw that under certain conditions may manifest itself in a potentially annoying to potentially dangerous way, depending on what you are doing.
Now, let's pretend it is a computer.
Your well-engineered and hardened security Windows 2003 Server system has a flaw in a protocol parser that allows, with the right combination of messsages, someone to cause code to be executed on your system.
In other words: This otherwise safe and well designed server operating system has a flaw which, depending on several factors, may manifest itself in an annoying or dangerous way.
Any complex system is going to have problems with it. Millions of lines of code, or hundreds of thousands of moving or conductive parts, each can have something fail if there's a tiny problem with it.
Microsoft releases their fixes free of charge, just like a dealer service recall on an automobile.
What's the problem here? You can eliminate 95% of these vaunerabilities by simply *not running without a firewall* and *not running unneeded services* which is (GASP) something you'd do on Linux as well. Linux is just as vaunerable if it's sitting open and unprotected on a network with 500 services running as root. Would you do that? No. So why do you do it with a Windows box?
If it's because Windows is more of a "turn-key" solution, and the user doesn't think to secure their box, it's not Microsoft's fault, the blame rests surely in USER ERROR.
Judging by the hundreds of viruses in my inbox, I'm getting a good whiff of second-hand windows.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Lets first talk about supported hardware configurations.
Before I would allow certain liabilities like this, I would require a given supported configuration. Lets say something like a Pentium 4 processor running at 3Ghz - without HyperThreading, A Chipset, a single graphics card (make it old too), a single hard disk from one manufacturer - the list goes on (well in reality - the list doesn't go on). Your hardware isn't in the supported configuration (You did buy directly from Dell didn't you ?) forget the support, it isn't a tested and qualified system.
Software configuration
You weren't going to install ANY other software on your system, other than mine... How do I know that THAT software didn't cause the problem - so nix any software purchases - or that will void the warantee as well.
So basically you end up with a supported system, that is completely useless. Not much fun at all. And you WANT to have this happen by getting lawyers involved ?
I have mod points and I am not afraid to use them
You don't expect a car dealership to be liable if your engine siezes because you never changed the oil.
The patches and exploits are handled as they arise and if you keep up with the maintenance than you wont suffer catastrophic failure.
Sure this is a bit of a stretch but you have to take some damn responsibility. You can't blame MS for all your woes.
They make a good product that keeps the majority on the road. Every generation has new features and new flaws. The fact is the flaws are publicized and you have an opportunity to patch them.
The time and money spent is part of the upkeep. It is like oil in an engine... if you never maintain it it will fail. It will leave you stranded and up a creek with a very expensive repair.
However, when maintained you get acceptable operation.
Quit your mindless bitching! Blame the Virus Writers for writing the viruses. Patch your system be it MS, *nix or whatever. Take some damn responsibility and stop blaming everyone else.
Boredom's not a burden anyone should bear.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/warranty/
97 comments were filed publicly. Everyone from RMS to IEEE to, well, me.
Basically, software warranties would make Free Software illegal. The model wouldn't work if we were held to quality expectations. Read the comments to educate yourself.
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