2009/8/7 Stephen Davies <stephen.davies@???>:
> There is an interesting article on infoworld
> http://infoworld.com/t/software-licensing/watch-out-developers-here-come-lawyers-436
>
> about proposals to make developers liable for damages if they are caught
> shipping software with bugs and not telling the user about them.
> Oddly, Microsoft & 'The Linux foundation' are on the same side here.
>
> As someone who has been writing software professionally since 1975 the
> issue of releasing software with known problems (or items Fixed in Next
> Release) has always concerned me.
> At DEC, we used to document the 'known issues & limitations' in the
> release notes. I don't see much of that in the FOSS world or even with
> many of the hugely expensive commercial software packages I use of a
> daily basis.
>
It is not such a big problem.
Take for example, the Linux kernel.
All known bugs are in the linux kernel bugzilla database, and it is public.
So, if a customer wishes to know about any known bugs, they can just
browse that.
With any program there are going to be some "unknown" bugs.
So it is perfectly acceptable to say the software writer is not liable.
After all, the user uses the software at their own risk.
I have worked in developing software for what we call "High Integrity
Systems". Here, any fault could possibly cause loss of life. The only
difference between that software and normal software is the amount of
extra thought and time that goes into it. There is also rather a lot
of testing involved in order to ensure the functionality meets the
requirements.
Also, methods are used that put extra checks and balances in, that
help to reduce the probability of incorrect information being
presented.
