[Sussex] Suing Microsoft

[Steve Dobson]

On 07 May 2003 at 11:21 Geoff Teale wrote:
<snip>
> Within in the bounds of current law what you have to
> establish is whether or not it is reasonable to expect
> the software to be bug-free.  I would suggest that
> received wisdom in the software industry would suggest
> not.

I take the point on the differences between bespoke and
of the shelf.  I also don't think it will be difficult for
any software company or person to prove that it is
un-reasonable to expect software to be bug free.
 
> I thoroughly agree.  Open Source software is by no means 
> perfect either.

Agreed

> Where there is no specific relationship between a customer 
> and the software vendor (ie. no agreed spec between them)
> my feeling is that caveat emptor ("Let the buyer beware")
> very much applies. 

I never though that the law would provide a good reason for
companies following the Open Source model, but if you give
your software away for free and just charge for support...
    
> > Ouch!  This could get very expensive.
> 
> Yes, as a general rule, if it involves lawyers of software 
> companies it is always going to be expensive :)

I was not thinking of the fees paid to lawyers, but of the
cost of recalling software.

  "Please send your new super tower back to the US were we
  will upgrade the software for free."

> This would severly restrict the software market. 

Yes.  I was joking.

> A more reasonable answer is that the court could rule that
> in this case producing a patch was good enough and thus set
> a precedent for future cases.  Not all of the law comes
> from legislation - a good deal is built on precedent, it's 
> just where there is no precedent that things can be very fuzzy.

Damn - a sensible way to solve a problem.  No so much fun :-)

> > I think this is the clearest case that shows how screwy the law
> > is to real life: I actually feel like I want to support M$.
> 
> ... and I would be right there with you.  I don't think
> Microsoft did anything wrong here.  OK we can point the
> finger and say there was a flaw, but Microsoft took action 
> to prevent it.  The one thing I would argue is that Microsoft
> (and some other vendors) should make more effort to push
> awareness of their bugs - relying on Sysadmins to regularly
> check for patches and banning no MS sites from listing MS
> bugs is not really very proactive.  If the brakes fail on
> your MR2 tomorrow, you wouldn't be very happy if Toyota
> said "Well, it said there was a fault on the support area of
> our website!".  Dunno.. maybe thats a vague area.

Given the number of "customers" of Microsoft I think publishing
on there Website is a good start.  Banning other sites from 
also reporting I would expect to fail under the "Free Press"
amendment of US Constitution (as similar laws in Europe).  If
M$ are actively stopping pug reports on other websites then 
this should against the law if the reports are true.

As for my MR2: Toyota have my name and address on record.  If
a problem does occur then can write to me and advise me.  I
think the model is different.  Of course if we can provide that
M$ is collecting data on who is using what software of theirs
then we should force them to mass e-mail there own bug reports
to all their users.  This would let everyone know the quality
of the software they're using.

Steve