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Software Liability Protection 5 Comments More | Login | Reply /

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  • The only thing I want, and what I think is the original idea behind this proposal, is a money back guarantee, if you find the software doesn't do what you wanted it to do.

    Currently, software vendors hide behind a "no promise of fitness for any particular purpose" clause in the EULA, and I'd like to see this clause wiped out of existence.

    • That might be enough to satisfy me. However, what's to stop someone from buying the software, installing it, then returning it for a money-back guarantee and still using it? That would be problematic, I think. Still, this would go a long way towards mitigating some of the issues involved.

      • What's to stop someone downloading the same software via BitTorrent? I think that's really an argument about piracy rather than the issue at hand (and most medium to large companies don't pirate - at least on a large scale - because they can be audited).

        I agree with bart... a money-back guarantee - while it wouldn't solve every problem - would at least give consumers some protection (while crucially leaving "free as in beer" alone). Anything more (as much as I'd love to see MS et al suffer for their shoddy

      • The penalty needs to be only payable once actual harm or misrepresentation has been demonstrated, (thus preventing your hypothetical) and needs to be a large multiple of the price. That price including any consultancy fees, maintenance contracts and so on, not just the purchase price. This would make people who just release their software for free immune (a large multiple * 0 == 0), but those who run businesses around free software liable.

        • Free software is one thing, but what about open source? If someone releases free software that has a nasty security hole exposing your credit card data to others, then I would argue that there's a liability issue. If it's also open source, I think that would be a mitigating factor in liability.

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