[Fsf-friends] Continuation....of Basics......

[Sriharsha Vedurmudi]

Again,

2. With non-free softwares, you can be sure of what features are present 
and what are not and what are the known bugs (as the company producing 
it is bound to make those details available to its customers). But with 
free s/w, Careless developers might not feel the same responsibility to 
update the documentation of the software or even the program description 
comments. So, a user downloading the software, can only trust God that 
what he/she is downloading is what he/she is expecting. How is this 
problem solved?

3. Will the developers with malicious intent not play around with free 
software and trick many unsuspecting people into loading the software 
(that has been maliciously modified by them), therby compromising 
heavily on the security of the companies confidential data. How is this 
countered?

4. Ultimately, is there any place for Responsibility / Answerablity in 
Free Software (unless voluntarily taken up by individuals)?

_Sriharsha_

PS: I never know till date the expansion of GNU (ya, I've been told its 
GNU Not Free, but what that first word GNU stands for is unknown. Is it 
proprietary? :-) )