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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. "
Can you imagine what the lawsuit would be like when some user says "Software X deleted some file" and the software company says "No, it didn't." How would you go about proving this either way?
It's called a journaled file system. HFS+ and NTFS are mere examples of this and they're the most widely used at this moment. You would have *NO* problem proving it as long as you could show the activity that happened. That's the point behind a journaled file system, to see what has changed and go back to a previous state if something undesirable happens.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
To enforce more "national security," all software released by corporations for government, public, or economical/industrial purposes/consumption, including but not limited to, the operating system(s) and all contents therein, including software running upon stated operating system(s), in the interest of the stability of our government and economy, should fall under some liability clause stating "If you claim this improvement over a previous product, you're held liable and can/will be judged upon the facts for any damage done." If you say a new version of a previously released version of same software is more reliable than a previous version of the software you've advertised and released, and there is even *ONE* more security hole found within the newer software than the older version, you should be held liable for false advertising *AND* breach of contract (The customer pays for a product which is perceived/guaranteed "more secure," but is not,) and it should apply to licenses and advertising, as well as apply to other versions of the same software with the same name. Also, it should apply to the same program under a different name.
To prove that case, simply observe the features, not the source code. If two programs from the same company offer functionality-wise the same abilities minus a few differences, it should be considered the same product and henceforth liable to contracts from other/older versions of the program.
DISCLAIMER!!!! I AM DRUNK!!! I AM NOT A LAWYER!!! TAKE WITH A GRAIN OF SALT!!! BUT DO TAKE WITH AN OPEN MIND!!!
Let's see how many don't read the disclaimer and mod me as Troll or Flamebait, without bothering to comprehend, shall we???
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Another mod that's needed besides '-1 humorless fuckstick', the '-1 completely specious legal analogy' mod.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.