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Disclaiming liability and such is an important F/OSS norm. Of course, proprietary software will improve on this (only) if forced to by competition. The omnipr

Disclaiming liability and such is an important F/OSS norm. Of course, proprietary software will improve on this (only) if forced to by competition. The omnipresence of EULAs is a much bigger problem, though. I think the F/OSS norms are better all around.

jacquesm 12y ago
> Disclaiming liability and such is an important F/OSS norm. Indeed. So there can be a market for companies that take on liability when serving commercial customers using F/OSS code that they have audited and that they feel exposes no more risks than they can bear. The original authors should definitely not be liable if they label their code as alpha or beta quality and do not wish to be exposed at all. They are doing a service to society. But once you aim your code at being used in production by entities that can suffer vast losses if your code turns out to be defective (in other words, if you sell your stuff to a business or private person) then you should be liable for those damages, or at a minimum you should insure against those damages. Compare software to for instance the engineering profession to see how strange this software anomaly is.
- jasonlotito 12y ago
  Granted, then the price of such software will skyrocket. The price people pay for most software accounts for the fact that such liability is not covered. Couple that with common software development practices, as well as time invested. It's not merely accepting liability, there are a whole slew of changes that need to come before this, and frankly, I doubt most people would pay for that. Indeed, if people want to be covered now, they can be. They just have to pay for it.
- davidw 12y ago
  One way or the other, the problems with software are mostly a matter of economics and incentives. Computers and software are the way they are because of the set of tradeoffs that the market rewards. It's certainly possible to write software with fewer bugs, that consumes fewer CPU cycles, memory, starts faster etc...: but it does less. So far, most people and businesses prefer software that does more at the cost of slower boot times, more CPU usage, and a few more bugs.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    I think it is mostly a lack of choice. If everybody does it then 'the market' becomes a de-facto monopoly and someone trying to do it right would not stand out in a meaningful way until it is too late. After all, all software is presented as 'bug free' until proven otherwise. Your bug free (really) software looks just as good as my bug free (really not) software on the outside. Six months down the line, when my not so bug free code eats your data I will point to that line in my EULA that says I'm not liable. Nobody will care, after all it is your data that got lost, not theirs. The fact that your EULA does not have that line and that you offer a warranty does not count for anything until someone would be willing to pay a premium. The only people that would like to pay that premium are the ones that lost their data... So it's an industry phenomenon. Imagine extrapolating this to buildings. Engineers claim their buildings will stand. Those engineers that talk nonsense will be sued out of business. But if they could disclaim responsibility they would continue to happily practice their borked trade and as a rule people would suffer from this. And so engineer became a word that actually meant something. But in software 'engineer' is roughly equivalent to 'can hold keyboard without dropping it'.
    - davidw 12y ago
      > Your bug free (really) software looks just as good as my bug free (really not) software on the outside. No, actually, it looks a lot worse: given the same time and developers, the bug free software will do way less than the buggier software. That, or at feature parity, the bug-free software takes more time and/or requires more people, so arrives later or costs more. I don't have any direct experience, but I suspect there are niches here and there where the market and/or regulations put a premium on no bugs. Avionics? Some categories of medical software?
      - jacquesm 12y ago
        Being able to sell software has precious little to do with the actual product but everything with marketing. So my crap software might (on the outside) look even better! You can only tell good quality software from bad quality software by auditing the code, not by observing the software from a users perspective (unless it refuses even to perform the basics).

jacquesm 12y ago

> Disclaiming liability and such is an important F/OSS norm. Indeed. So there can be a market for companies that take on liability when serving commercial customers using F/OSS code that they have audited and that they feel exposes no more risks than they can bear. The original authors should definitely not be liable if they label their code as alpha or beta quality and do not wish to be exposed at all. They are doing a service to society. But once you aim your code at being used in production by entities that can suffer vast losses if your code turns out to be defective (in other words, if you sell your stuff to a business or private person) then you should be liable for those damages, or at a minimum you should insure against those damages. Compare software to for instance the engineering profession to see how strange this software anomaly is.

jasonlotito 12y ago
Granted, then the price of such software will skyrocket. The price people pay for most software accounts for the fact that such liability is not covered. Couple that with common software development practices, as well as time invested. It's not merely accepting liability, there are a whole slew of changes that need to come before this, and frankly, I doubt most people would pay for that. Indeed, if people want to be covered now, they can be. They just have to pay for it.
davidw 12y ago
One way or the other, the problems with software are mostly a matter of economics and incentives. Computers and software are the way they are because of the set of tradeoffs that the market rewards. It's certainly possible to write software with fewer bugs, that consumes fewer CPU cycles, memory, starts faster etc...: but it does less. So far, most people and businesses prefer software that does more at the cost of slower boot times, more CPU usage, and a few more bugs.
- jacquesm 12y ago
  I think it is mostly a lack of choice. If everybody does it then 'the market' becomes a de-facto monopoly and someone trying to do it right would not stand out in a meaningful way until it is too late. After all, all software is presented as 'bug free' until proven otherwise. Your bug free (really) software looks just as good as my bug free (really not) software on the outside. Six months down the line, when my not so bug free code eats your data I will point to that line in my EULA that says I'm not liable. Nobody will care, after all it is your data that got lost, not theirs. The fact that your EULA does not have that line and that you offer a warranty does not count for anything until someone would be willing to pay a premium. The only people that would like to pay that premium are the ones that lost their data... So it's an industry phenomenon. Imagine extrapolating this to buildings. Engineers claim their buildings will stand. Those engineers that talk nonsense will be sued out of business. But if they could disclaim responsibility they would continue to happily practice their borked trade and as a rule people would suffer from this. And so engineer became a word that actually meant something. But in software 'engineer' is roughly equivalent to 'can hold keyboard without dropping it'.
  - davidw 12y ago
    > Your bug free (really) software looks just as good as my bug free (really not) software on the outside. No, actually, it looks a lot worse: given the same time and developers, the bug free software will do way less than the buggier software. That, or at feature parity, the bug-free software takes more time and/or requires more people, so arrives later or costs more. I don't have any direct experience, but I suspect there are niches here and there where the market and/or regulations put a premium on no bugs. Avionics? Some categories of medical software?
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      Being able to sell software has precious little to do with the actual product but everything with marketing. So my crap software might (on the outside) look even better! You can only tell good quality software from bad quality software by auditing the code, not by observing the software from a users perspective (unless it refuses even to perform the basics).