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Software liability laws: a dangerous solutionSoftware liability laws: a dangerous solutionPosted Sep 9, 2007 8:11 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313)In reply to: Software liability laws: a dangerous solution by giraffedata Parent article: Software liability laws: a dangerous solution
when was the last time you were able to buy equivalent software with and without a warranty?
and a service contract is not a warranty. if you look at the licensing agreement of just about any software that you buy you will see that the seller disclaims any responsibility and that the software is not guaranteed to do anything at all, let alone what you want it to do. this is useually followed by a clause limiting their liability if the software does something wrong to the purchase price of the software.
consumers do not have a choice today.
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Software liability laws: a dangerous solution Posted Sep 9, 2007 17:24 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] That (the fact that virtually no software is offered with a warranty) is pretty much my point. It's not offered because no one will buy it. People won't buy it because they believe they can protect themselves from the risk of a bug (or just bear the risk) for less money than it would cost the seller to guarantee there aren't any bugs. I believe the free market does a better job in this way of sorting out the complexities of the risks of operating computers than legislators can.
Software liability laws: a dangerous solution Posted Sep 9, 2007 18:50 UTC (Sun) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link] you are missing the point.
the free market can't fix the problem if consumers don't have a choice.
people haven't opted to not buy the warranty, the companies have decided not to offer it (and not just for cheap software, take a look at the license for very expensive software, it says the same things)
Software liability laws: a dangerous solution Posted Sep 9, 2007 21:55 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] the free market can't fix the problem if consumers don't have a choice. Yes it can; it does it all the time. In the big picture, the consumers have a choice because if they want something (I mean are willing to pay for it), someone will provide it. The market is huge and dynamic. If there's even a chance consumers would choose something and nobody is offering it, there's profit to be made and someone will offer it. I believe the software industry has considered offering warranteed software and consistently determined that consumers would choose the cheap unwarranteed competition instead. I do support government regulation to promote competition, including by reducing barriers to entry into a market. Just not anti-competitive regulation that outlaws certain voluntary transactions.
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