[Fsf-friends] No warranty

[Chandrashekhar Mullaparthi]

On 23/12/03 10:27 am, "Ramanraj K" <ramanraj@md4.vsnl.net.in> wrote:

> 
> 
> If I say I have extracted the above from the GPL, you need not take my
> word for granted.  You can visit http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html
> and verify if my claim is correct.  Similarly, one may verify output
> from software without taking it for granted, and this makes the need for
> a warranty unnecessary.
> 
> 

This is what I find surprising about commercial software. All hardware comes
with a warranty which covers manufacturing defects for a certain period of
time. And invariably a replacement is offered if a certain unit turns out to
be defective. And in cases of design defects which are a health hazard to
customers, the product is recalled and the customers possibly refunded.

But with software, all bets are off. No one takes responsibilty for security
risks which cost customers time and money. The best one can hope for are
patches from the vendor, which hopefully doesn't break anything else and
doesn't open up anymore security holes. This has led to software with so
many security holes (mostly commercial ones!). I think it is time customers
demanded some kind of warranty for commercial software - but I do agree that
it is hard to define what kind of protection it should provide the customer
with.

Verifying the output is not practical for the average end user except for
the most trivial piece of software.

regards
Chandru