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That being said, security updates shouldbe part of the price you already paid, since a security flaw is a flaw in their original software. Security vulnerabili
by CountSessine 8y ago
That being said, security updates shouldbe part of the price you already paid, since a security flaw is a flaw in their original software.
Security vulnerabilities generally aren’t considers latent defects under warranty laws (at least not in NA). I’m not sure what the tech world would look like if it were - for one thing, software teams would probably need a P.Eng. on their teams to ship. For another, using open source software would be even harder to do without an intermediary like Red Hat who would be willing to accept tort liability.
At any rate, your software vendor has no legal responsibility to provide you with security updates. Maybe they should. But you’ll pay for that anyways. How do you want to amortize those security updates? By paying the dividend discount price of the updates up front and risk having the product abandoned in a few years (cheating you out of your ‘dividend’), or by paying directly through a subscription?
If you are paying for a subscription there isn’t necessarily an incentive to provide security updates even more, since they have the functionality of your app hostage if you decide to cancel and the automatic monthly billing has no ties to the quantity or wuality of updates they push out.
That makes no sense - you have it completely backwards. Their incentive to provide me with timely security updates is my continued subscription fees. On the other hand, if you pay the dividend discount price for those security updates up front, they have every incentive to stop releasing updates and cheat you out of your update ‘dividend’.
- facetube 8y ago> Maybe they should.
- vehementi 8y ago> That makes no sense - you have it completely backwards. Their incentive to provide me with timely security updates is my continued subscription fees You pay one subscription fee for both "I can use my app at all" and "security updates" together. Once there is enough inertia for you to not want to switch off, you'll probably keep paying (to use the app at all) even if they don't provide security updates. If there were two fees - #1 a one time lifetime usage fee and #2 a security updates subscription fee then maybe that would make sense, but I don't think so otherwise
- chrischen 8y agoAgreed. This is the main distinction. If they are explicitly charging for security updates and being upfront that would be a completely different story. That being said, if they could do that then they can also charge for security updates piece-meal.
- pktgen 8y ago> At any rate, your software vendor has no legal responsibility to provide you with security updates. Maybe they should. But you’ll pay for that anyways. Yes, those costs will ultimately be embedded in product pricing and borne by the customer, but that's good. It gives vendors a financial incentive to develop more secure software and reduce their security update costs (and earn more profit). (Nothing is perfectly secure, but a culture change and following certain practices can help. Think Microsoft pre-trustworthy computing memo and Microsoft today.)