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posted by md
on Monday May 06, @11:34AM
from the ready-aim-sue dept.
mpawlo writes "What would the computer market look like if the developers would be held accountable for bugs and errors in the same way car manufacturers are?
Microsoft would file for chapter 11 after a few fatal computer crashes. But it would also affect open source development. Would you contribute to Gnome if you risked liability for bugs? Even if the development model described by Eric S Raymond in the Cathedral and te bazaar may be safer than a closed model, it is far from foolproof. A lemon law for software is discussed in an Economist article. It is very nice food for thought."
Political considerations aside, why wouldn't such a law work? It could be drafted to protect licensees from software that simply wouldn't work, and/or software bugs that damage the user's system. It would have to be drawn carefully to catch the large problems, but not to create unnecessary hurdles that stifle innovation.
Humanity has the stars in its future, and that future is too important to be
lost under the burden of juvenile folly and ignorant superstition.
- Isaac Asimov