North American Network Operators Group

Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical

RE: What do you want your ISP to block today?

  • From: David Schwartz
  • Date: Mon Sep 01 20:15:03 2003

> When you don't have liability you don't have to worry about quality.
>
> What we need is lemon laws for software.
>
> --vadim

	That would destroy the free software community. You could try to exempt
free software, but then you would just succeed in destroying the 'low cost'
software community. (And, in any event, since free software is not really
free, you would have a hard time exempting the free software community.
Licensing terms, even if not explicitly in dollars, have a cost associated
with them.)

	Any agreement two uncoerced people make with full knowledge of the terms is
fair by definition. If I don't want to buy software unless the manufacturer
takes liability, I am already free to accept only those terms. All you want
to do is remove from the buyer the freedom to negotiate away his right to
sue for liability in exchange for a lower price.

	If you seriously think government regulation to reduce people's software
buying choices can produce more reliable software, you're living in a
different world from the one that I'm living in. In fact, if all companies
were required to accept liability for their software, companies that produce
more reliable software couldn't choose to accept liability as a competitive
edge. So you'd reduce competition's ability to pressure manufacturers to
make reliable software.

	Manufacturers would simply purchase more expensive liability insurance,
raise the prices on their software, and continue to produce software that is
no more reliable.

	DS