[Sussex] Suing Microsoft

[Geoff Teale]

A classic reason business managers have for ignoring community supported
software is "there's no one to sue..", which makes me wonder just how many
companies out there are suing large proprietary vendors every time something
doesn't live up to their expectations.  The answer I imagine is very few..
but here's one for the records:

The PSPD, a group (http://www.pspd.org/image/pspd_title.gif) representing
"the South Korean people" are actually suing Microsoft over matters of
software quality - specifically with regard to  the SQL Slammer Worm.

Interesting to see how this turns out, I have no idea of the workings of
Korean law, but Microsoft make specific reservations in their EULA's to
protect against this.  In the UK you could argue that a piece of software
was not fit for the purpose for which it was sold, but that would be very
hard to prove and would be an issue for the consumer to take up with the
point of sale.

What impact does this have on open source - well, while OSS usually mandates
no warranty and their is no "sale" of software (or at least rarely, so "sale
of goods" class legislation is not wholly applicable) their is a contract
associated and a license for use, their must therefore be some expected
contractual obligation on the part of the producer of Open Source as well as
the consumer.  That said though, OSS is in a stronger position to walk away
from charges like this than the producers of a saleable product.  One
positive thing is that it puts issues of software quality firmly in the
news.  

-- 
GJT
Free Software, Free Society. 
http://www.fsf.org   http://www.gnu.org

You have created a powerful solution for which there are no problems.
Everyone is impressed, but duly confused.


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