BBC Commentator Goes After Software Licensing

An anonymous reader writes "Bill Thompson, a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital, criticizes current software licenses (including the GPL) for giving developers 'freedom from responsibility which would be considered wholly unacceptable in almost any other sphere of activity, public or private'." From the article: "A friend of mine is a children's writer. When she writes a non-fiction book she is typically asked to sign a contract that indemnifies the publisher against legal costs resulting from errors of fact in the book. If she was to suggest a school experiment that involved drinking sulphuric acid, because she'd confused it with acetic, then she'd be in big trouble. Yet I can't do anything when a company produces software that exposes my online banking details to any script kiddie with time to spare, because I've agreed a license that removes such liability. "

Comments

Ya, more or less

[Sycraft-fu]

You choose to accept the risk, in trade for the benefits. Designing a system with no bugs is expensive and time consuming. You have to test things extensively at every level. That also means testing all the possible interactions. Not only how the OS interacts with the hardware, but how it interacts with the software, and how it interacts with each other. So when you design a system like that, the hardware neede to be known, as does all the software. You can't have it run on random comoddity hardware using random software beacuse then unforseen problems can result.

So by choosing to run software cheaply and quickly developed in random environments, you choose to accept teh fact bugs may occur.

To me, demanding that commoddity software on commoddity hardware run without bugs is like demanding that an automobile on the public streets never get in to an accident, even one caused by driver error, unforsseen conditions, or other drivers. Can't happen. If you want gaurentteed operation, you need controlled conditions.