Software is a interesting invention. Software has this interesting
property, that it can be duplicated without cost, as if like copying
money. Never in history are goods duplicable without cost. But with
the invention of computer, the ephemeral non-physical programs breaks
that precept. In digital form, program and music and books all become
goods in essentially infinite quantity.
All is good except, bads in digital form can also multiply equally,
just as goods. Wellknown examples are computer viruses and email
spams. Unknown to the throng of unix morons is software bads. In a
unix moron's mind, the predominant quip among hackers is "where is
your code?", singnifying the mentality that a hacker's prestige is
judged on how much code he has contributed to the community.
Therefore, every fucking studs and happy-go-lucky morons put their
homework on the net, with a big stamp of FREE, and quite proud of
their "contributions" to the world. These digital bads, including
irresponsible programs, protocols, and languages, spread like viruses
until they obtained the touting right of being the STARDARD or MOST
POPULAR in industry, as if indicating superior quality. Examplary are
C, Perl, RFC, X-Windows, Apache, MySQL, Pretty Home Page (and almost
anything out of unix). The harm of a virus is direct. The harm of
irresponsible software (esp with unscrupulous promotion) is the
creation of a entire generation of bad thinking and monkey coders. The
scales can be compared as to putting a bullet in a person brain,
versus creating a creed with the Holocaust aftermath.
Distribution of software is easily like pollution. I thought of a law
that would ban the distribution of software bads, or like charging for
garbage collection in modern societies. The problem is the difficulty
of deciding what is good and what is bad. Like in so many things, i
think the ultimate help is for people to be aware; so-called
education; I believe, if people are made aware of the situation i
spoke of, then irresponsible software will decrease, regardless any
individual's opinion.
--
The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that
irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with
responsible license, such that the producer of a software will be
liable for damage incurred thru their software. As we know, today's
software licenses comes with a disclaimer that essentially says the
software is sold as is and the producer is not responsible for any
damage, nor guaranteeing the functionality of the software. It is
this, that allows all sorts of sloppitudes and fucking fads and myths
to rampage and survive in the software industry. Once when software
producers are liable for their products, just as bridge or airplane or
transportation or house builders are responsible for the things they
build, then injurious fads and creeds the likes of (Perl, Programing
Patterns, eXtreme Programing, "Universal" Modeling Language...) will
automatically disappear by dint of market force without anyone's
stipulation.
In our already established infrastructure of software and industry
practices that is so already fucked up by existing shams, we can not
immediately expect a about-face in software licenses from 0 liability
to 100% liability. We should gradually make them responsible. And
this, comes not from artificial force, but gradual establishment of
awareness among software professionals and their consumers. (Producers
includes single individual to software houses, and consumers includes
not just mom & pop but from IT corps to military.)
http://xahlee.org/UnixResource_dir/writ/responsible_license.html
Xah
xahlee.org
http://xahlee.org/PageTwo_dir/more.html
"Xah Lee" <···@xahlee.org> wrote in message
·································@posting.google.com...
> The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that
> irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with
> responsible license, such that the producer of a software will be
> liable for damage incurred thru their software. As we know, today's
> software licenses comes with a disclaimer that essentially says the
> software is sold as is and the producer is not responsible for any
> damage, nor guaranteeing the functionality of the software. It is
> this, that allows all sorts of sloppitudes and fucking fads and myths
> to rampage and survive in the software industry. Once when software
> producers are liable for their products, just as bridge or airplane or
> transportation or house builders are responsible for the things they
> build, then injurious fads and creeds the likes of (Perl, Programing
> Patterns, eXtreme Programing, "Universal" Modeling Language...) will
> automatically disappear by dint of market force without anyone's
> stipulation.
That would destroy the free software community. You could try to exempt free
software, but then you would just succeed in destroying the 'low cost'
software community. (And, in any event, since free software is not really
free, you would have a hard time exempting the free software community.
Licensing terms, even if not explicitly in dollars, have a cost associated
with them.)
Any agreement two uncoerced people make with full knowledge of the terms is
fair by definition. If I don't want to buy software unless the manufacturer
takes liability, I am already free to accept only those terms. All you want
to do is remove from the buyer the freedom to negotiate away his right to
sue for liability in exchange for a lower price.
If you seriously think government regulation to reduce people's software
buying choices can produce more reliable software, you're living in a
different world from the one that I'm living in. In fact, if all companies
were required to accept liability for their software, companies that produce
more reliable software couldn't choose to accept liability as a competitive
edge. So you'd reduce competition's ability to pressure manufacturers to
make reliable software.
Manufacturers would simply purchase more expensive liability insurance,
raise the prices on their software, and continue to produce software that is
no more reliable. An even worse unintended consequence -- when a bug was
discovered, a company would likely go out of business leaving nobody and
nothing to maintain the software.
DS
On Mon, 1 Sep 2003 18:08:36 -0700
"David Schwartz" <······@webmaster.com> wrote:
>
> "Xah Lee" <···@xahlee.org> wrote in message
> ·································@posting.google.com...
>
> > The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that
> > irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with
> > responsible license, such that the producer of a software will be
> > liable for damage incurred thru their software. As we know, today's
> > software licenses comes with a disclaimer that essentially says the
> > software is sold as is and the producer is not responsible for any
> > damage, nor guaranteeing the functionality of the software. It is
> > this, that allows all sorts of sloppitudes and fucking fads and
> > myths to rampage and survive in the software industry. Once when
> > software producers are liable for their products, just as bridge or
> > airplane or transportation or house builders are responsible for the
> > things they build, then injurious fads and creeds the likes of
> > (Perl, Programing Patterns, eXtreme Programing, "Universal" Modeling
> > Language...) will automatically disappear by dint of market force
> > without anyone's stipulation.
>
> That would destroy the free software community. You could try to
> exempt free software, but then you would just succeed in destroying
> the 'low cost' software community. (And, in any event, since free
> software is not really free, you would have a hard time exempting the
> free software community. Licensing terms, even if not explicitly in
> dollars, have a cost associated with them.)
>
> Any agreement two uncoerced people make with full knowledge of the
> terms is fair by definition. If I don't want to buy software unless
> the manufacturer takes liability, I am already free to accept only
> those terms. All you want to do is remove from the buyer the freedom
> to negotiate away his right to sue for liability in exchange for a
> lower price.
>
>
>
> If you seriously think government regulation to reduce people's
> software buying choices can produce more reliable software, you're
> living in a different world from the one that I'm living in. In fact,
> if all companies were required to accept liability for their software,
> companies that produce more reliable software couldn't choose to
> accept liability as a competitive edge. So you'd reduce competition's
> ability to pressure manufacturers to make reliable software.
>
>
>
> Manufacturers would simply purchase more expensive liability
> insurance, raise the prices on their software, and continue to produce
> software that is no more reliable. An even worse unintended
> consequence -- when a bug was discovered, a company would likely go
> out of business leaving nobody and nothing to maintain the software.
Not only that, it would destroy some commercial software vendors. Let's
say that company a buys software from vendor b. Company a misuses that
software, and sues company b. Even though a misused the software, they
can end up costing company b a large amount of money just to defend
itself. Cessna stopped producing light single engine aircraft because of
this. not because there was anything wrong with these aircraft (They had
never lost a suit), but because of the cost of defending themselves.
--
Jerry Feldman <gaf-nospam-at-blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
Jerry Feldman <··········@blu.org> writes:
> Not only that, it would destroy [...]
the nice hack is to increase accountability w/o increasing liability. a
programmer can do this leaving the standard liability contract constructs (NO
WARRANTY) alone, by concentrating instead on user-configurable "make check".
the key is "user-configurable". this means the testing methodology of "make
check" is complete enough to handle significant subsets of user environment
and/or data, and that the package supplies a relatively painless way to hook
this subset into the testing, prior to installation.
of course, if your package doesn't even support "make check", that's another
thing to add to the TODO (grumble grumble ;-).
thi
Jerry Feldman <··········@blu.org> wrote:
+---------------
| > Manufacturers would simply purchase more expensive liability
| > insurance, raise the prices on their software, and continue to produce
| > software that is no more reliable. An even worse unintended
| > consequence -- when a bug was discovered, a company would likely go
| > out of business leaving nobody and nothing to maintain the software.
| Not only that, it would destroy some commercial software vendors. Let's
| say that company a buys software from vendor b. Company a misuses that
| software, and sues company b. Even though a misused the software, they
| can end up costing company b a large amount of money just to defend
| itself. Cessna stopped producing light single engine aircraft because of
| this. not because there was anything wrong with these aircraft (They had
| never lost a suit), but because of the cost of defending themselves.
+---------------
Piper, not Cessna. And it went bankrupt, not just "stopped producing
light singles". That's why the current successor company is called
"The NEW Piper Aircraft Company". See:
<URL:http://www.americancapital.com/news/press_releases/pr/pr19980921.html>
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock, PP-ASEL-IA <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
>
> Piper, not Cessna. And it went bankrupt, not just "stopped producing
> light singles". That's why the current successor company is called
> "The NEW Piper Aircraft Company". See:
>
> <URL:http://www.americancapital.com/news/press_releases/pr/pr19980921.html>
>
>
> -Rob
Actually (to get really off topic) he was right about Cessna.
Something similar may have happened to Piper as well, but that doesnt
make him wrong. btw I think that Cessna is getting back into producins
light singles again.
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: responsible license
Date:
Message-ID: <u3cfd24wr.fsf@dtpq.com>
>>>>> On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 04:23:22 -0500, Rob Warnock ("Rob") writes:
Rob> Jerry Feldman <··········@blu.org> wrote:
Rob> +---------------
Rob> | > Manufacturers would simply purchase more expensive liability
Rob> | > insurance, raise the prices on their software, and continue to produce
Rob> | > software that is no more reliable. An even worse unintended
Rob> | > consequence -- when a bug was discovered, a company would likely go
Rob> | > out of business leaving nobody and nothing to maintain the software.
Rob> | Not only that, it would destroy some commercial software vendors. Let's
Rob> | say that company a buys software from vendor b. Company a misuses that
Rob> | software, and sues company b. Even though a misused the software, they
Rob> | can end up costing company b a large amount of money just to defend
Rob> | itself. Cessna stopped producing light single engine aircraft because of
Rob> | this. not because there was anything wrong with these aircraft (They had
Rob> | never lost a suit), but because of the cost of defending themselves.
Rob> +---------------
Rob> Piper, not Cessna. And it went bankrupt, not just "stopped producing
Rob> light singles". That's why the current successor company is called
Rob> "The NEW Piper Aircraft Company". See:
Rob> <URL:http://www.americancapital.com/news/press_releases/pr/pr19980921.html>
I think the story was that Cessna also had problems, even before
things went under at Piper, and they stopped making 172s and such,
and just manufactured jets up in Canada.
(You're both right.)
Christopher C. Stacy <······@dtpq.com> wrote:
+---------------
| I think the story was that Cessna also had problems, even before
| things went under at Piper, and they stopped making 172s and such,
| and just manufactured jets up in Canada.
+---------------
But they restarted again just as soon as the limited-liability law
passed (1997?), which, interestingly enough, applies only to planes
older than 18 years! [Previous law let people sue for so-called
"manufacturing defects" in planes that had been flying successfully
for over 40 years!!]
Relevance to Lisp? Think "software liability"...
-Rob
-----
Rob Warnock, PP-ASEL-IA <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
From: Christopher C. Stacy
Subject: Re: responsible license
Date:
Message-ID: <u7k4np7xz.fsf@dtpq.com>
>>>>> On Fri, 05 Sep 2003 05:42:12 -0500, Rob Warnock ("Rob") writes:
Rob> Christopher C. Stacy <······@dtpq.com> wrote:
Rob> +---------------
Rob> | I think the story was that Cessna also had problems, even before
Rob> | things went under at Piper, and they stopped making 172s and such,
Rob> | and just manufactured jets up in Canada.
Rob> +---------------
Rob> But they restarted again just as soon as the limited-liability law
Rob> passed (1997?), which, interestingly enough, applies only to planes
Rob> older than 18 years! [Previous law let people sue for so-called
Rob> "manufacturing defects" in planes that had been flying successfully
Rob> for over 40 years!!]
Rob> Relevance to Lisp? Think "software liability"...
I wonder when the Federal Software Administration will start issuing
mandatory ADs for the operating system I'm writing this message on!
There will be a high cost of complying with the monthly ADs:
purchasing the patches and hiring the federally certificated software
mechanic to install them, and inspecting every bit of software on my
computer (and anything I attach to it) and certifying compliance and
compu-worthiness of the system, not to mention all the official paperwork.
But that will be better than having my computer grounded from the Internet!
Maybe they should start with the software in the car (engine, dash,
navigation, communication, and entertainment), though.
Of course, nobody would be programming without their federally issued
Programmer's Certificate and the current federal Mental Health
Certification documentation in their posession.
--Chris
(ATP-ME L/W)
Advanced Technology Programmer
Lisp
Multi-Engine LAN/Wireless
Christopher C. Stacy <······@dtpq.com> wrote:
+---------------
| Rob Warnock ("Rob") writes:
| Rob> Christopher C. Stacy <······@dtpq.com> wrote:
| Rob> | I think the story was that Cessna also had problems...
|
| Rob> But they restarted again just as soon as the limited-liability law
| Rob> passed ...
|
| Rob> Relevance to Lisp? Think "software liability".
|
| I wonder when the Federal Software Administration will start issuing
| mandatory ADs for the operating system I'm writing this message on!
|
| There will be a high cost of complying with the monthly ADs:
| purchasing the patches and hiring the federally certificated software
| mechanic to install them, and inspecting every bit of software on my
| computer (and anything I attach to it) and certifying compliance and
| compu-worthiness of the system, not to mention all the official paperwork.
| But that will be better than having my computer grounded from the Internet!
...
| Of course, nobody would be programming without their federally issued
| Programmer's Certificate and the current federal Mental Health
| Certification documentation in their posession.
+---------------
Yes, *exactly* the sorts of issues the software industry should be
worrying about!! ;-} ;-}
To stretch the analogy a bit more: Of course, if you *do* have your
federally issued Programmer's Certificate and a current federal Mental
Health Certificate, and you *own* your own computer, then you might
be allowed to to certain "non-critical" pieces of maintainance, such
as add or delete a user, change an email alias, etc., but for *anything*
else -- especially anything that might affect the Digital Rights Management
Kernel or the Security Kernel -- you'd still have to get your sysadmin
work done by a federally certificated software mechanic.
-Rob
p.s. Spoiler for non-pilots: Aircraft owners are allowed to do a few
really minor maintainance tasks themselves, such as adjust tire pressures,
add or change engine oil, or change externally-accessible light bulbs
or fuses. But that's about all...
-----
Rob Warnock, PP-ASEL-IA <····@rpw3.org>
627 26th Avenue <URL:http://rpw3.org/>
San Mateo, CA 94403 (650)572-2607
On Wed, 03 Sep 2003 04:23:22 -0500
····@rpw3.org (Rob Warnock) wrote:
> Jerry Feldman <··········@blu.org> wrote:
> +---------------
> | > Manufacturers would simply purchase more expensive liability
> | > insurance, raise the prices on their software, and continue to
> produce| > software that is no more reliable. An even worse unintended
> | > consequence -- when a bug was discovered, a company would likely
> go| > out of business leaving nobody and nothing to maintain the
> software.| Not only that, it would destroy some commercial software
> vendors. Let's| say that company a buys software from vendor b.
> Company a misuses that| software, and sues company b. Even though a
> misused the software, they| can end up costing company b a large
> amount of money just to defend| itself. Cessna stopped producing light
> single engine aircraft because of| this. not because there was
> anything wrong with these aircraft (They had| never lost a suit), but
> because of the cost of defending themselves. +---------------
>
> Piper, not Cessna. And it went bankrupt, not just "stopped producing
> light singles". That's why the current successor company is called
> "The NEW Piper Aircraft Company". See:
Yes, I am aware that Piper went bankrupt, but they were not on good
financial footing. I was specifically referring to a decision by Cessna
to halt the manufacture of their single engine aircraft because of the
cost of the lawsuits. Cessna also had a much broader base than Piper and
it also produced aircraft for the military. They have since resumed the
manufacture of their single engine aircraft.
--
Jerry Feldman <gaf-nospam-at-blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
PGP Key fingerprint:053C 73EC 3AC1 5C44 3E14 9245 FB00 3ED5 C506 1EA9
···@xahlee.org (Xah Lee) writes:
> The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that
> irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with
> responsible license, such that the producer of a software will be
> liable for damage incurred thru their software. As we know, today's
> software licenses comes with a disclaimer that essentially says the
> software is sold as is and the producer is not responsible for any
> damage, nor guaranteeing the functionality of the software. It is
> this, that allows all sorts of sloppitudes and fucking fads and myths
> to rampage and survive in the software industry. Once when software
> producers are liable for their products, just as bridge or airplane or
> transportation or house builders are responsible for the things they
> build, then injurious fads and creeds the likes of (Perl, Programing
> Patterns, eXtreme Programing, "Universal" Modeling Language...) will
> automatically disappear by dint of market force without anyone's
> stipulation.
>
> In our already established infrastructure of software and industry
> practices that is so already fucked up by existing shams, we can not
> immediately expect a about-face in software licenses from 0 liability
> to 100% liability. We should gradually make them responsible. And
> this, comes not from artificial force, but gradual establishment of
> awareness among software professionals and their consumers. (Producers
> includes single individual to software houses, and consumers includes
> not just mom & pop but from IT corps to military.)
Actually, I've seen some software licenses that don't disclaim all
liability. One I've seen says something like ``This software is
warranted to function substantially as documented. If it does not, we
will repair it.'' I think they had a clause so that typos in the
manual didn't result in design changes. It is definitely something I
noticed.
Unfortunately, when software *doesn't* function as specified, it is
often difficult to uncover the true cause. It could be the software
itself, or perhaps a bad library, or a virus, or a flaky CPU, etc.
Obviously, a rational person wouldn't expect the software to function
under *every conceivable* condition, but there will be several
`borderline' cases or cases where the vendor and the user disagree as
to what exactly is broken.
I *think* that part of the problem today is that the demand for
software is so extreme that *any* software that even comes close to
`solving' the problem is acceptable. Quality may become a more
important distinguishing factor if the demand goes down.
On 31 Aug 2003 14:25:50 -0700
···@xahlee.org (Xah Lee) wrote:
> The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that
> irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with
> responsible license, such that the producer of a software will be
> liable for damage incurred thru their software.
Hmm....interesting idea.
You first.
Jason Creighton
[ replying to comp.lang.lisp only
http://www.nhplace.com/kent/PFAQ/cross-posting.html
ALSO, commenting only on this post, possibly missing some
context since I have not read priors in this thread.]
Jason Creighton <·········@softhome.net.remove.to.reply> writes:
> On 31 Aug 2003 14:25:50 -0700
> ···@xahlee.org (Xah Lee) wrote:
>
> > The most important measure to counter the tremendous harm that
> > irresponsible software has done to the industry is to begin with
> > responsible license, such that the producer of a software will be
> > liable for damage incurred thru their software.
>
> Hmm....interesting idea.
Something someone told me a long time ago that has never turned out to
lead me in the wrong direction:
Never take on risk without someone paying you for the risk.
I think most software companies would, if someone were willing to pay
them for it, accept liability. Rewriting their contracts at the same
cost to add new risks and responsibilities unilaterally is not a formula
for responsibility, it is a formula for suicide.
The market for software does have a lot of offerings that comes under
pretty minimal or non-existent warranty. But I bet that customers
would usually prefer lower costs and higher risks than lower risks and
higher costs. There is no reason they should expect both low cost and
low risk for free.
If Xah wants to foist this kind of responsibility on an entire
industry in unilateral fashion, the conventional means to do this is
to pass a law, not to tell everyone they should use a license.
The whole point of a license is to operate in the absence of
prevailing law on a particular topic, and, in effect, to find a
mutually acceptable agreement on terms at a mutually acceptable price.
If individuals having negotiated a price and terms don't mention
responsibility, that's presumably their desire. If a company offering
a product with no warranty is not acceptable to someone buying, the
buyer can ask for a warranty separately and/or can seek another
vendor's product.
If the market is such that there is no competing vendor and the lone
vendor is too big to get the attention of, then your problem is not
"responsibility" but "monopoly". I don't mean to belittle the problems
of software monopoly; only to say that attempting to address the
awesome power of a monopoly by rewriting existing laws or conventions
regarding other trade practices to accomodate a couple of large offenders
does not seem like good policy to me.
Kent M Pitman <······@world.std.com> wrote in message news:<···············@shell01.TheWorld.com>...
> of software monopoly; only to say that attempting to address the
> awesome power of a monopoly by rewriting existing laws or conventions
> regarding other trade practices to accomodate a couple of large offenders
> does not seem like good policy to me.
The problem with software monopoly is not
a problem of practices but rather a problem
of unintended effects of existing laws and
customs when applied to new situations such
as big software monoplies that never existed
before. In particular, software monopoly
power is compounded, such that when a company
is twice as big as another company, it has a
lot more than twice the power.
To solve this problem easily and with maximum
fairness to everyone, we could simply change
the existing copyright law to exclude copyright
holders with unusually large annual revenues.
This would force big software monopolies to
split into smaller companies without any imposed
government supervision. They would do it to
take advantage of the copyright law, not because
anyone was forcing them to do it. The law could
state that the purpose of copyright protection is
to protect the intellectual property of those who
most need such protection, and that big companies
are presumed to have the power to protect their
own property without help from the government.
The courts would have no basis to overturn it,
because it would be stated in such a way that its
intent was clear and clearly intended to be fair
to everyone.
········@yahoo.com (Eric Smith) writes:
> To solve this problem [monopoly power] easily and with maximum
> fairness to everyone, we could simply change the existing copyright
> law to exclude copyright holders with unusually large annual
> revenues. This would force big software monopolies to split into
> smaller companies without any imposed government supervision.
This drifts fairly far afield of the "responsible license" question,
which is only tenuously relevant to Lisp (in the sense that Lisp is
offered under license). Lisp, at this point, doesn't have monopoly
control of anything, and so I'm not personally too worried about
breaking up monopolies in this forum. I mentioned monopolies myself
in my prior message not to open the subject, but to hopefully head off
a whole branch of discussion that insisted we needed to change
"software license law" because otherwise monopolies will impose their
licenses in this or that way. My point is that if you allow monopolies,
a lot of rules break. While there may be a variety of ways of breaking
up monopolies, the point is that in the context of this discussion on
"responsible licenses", if it's a relevant at all to Lisp, it's relevant
only in the context where you disallow discussions of monopoly powers,
since otherwise you're in a frame of discussion where a kind of magic
applies, in the sense that, paraphrasing Clarke, "any sufficiently
advanced monopoly behavior is indistinguishable from law".
I happen also not to think it would work (i.e., serve the public well),
and I probably think it's not morally appropriate even if it would work,
but since I think it's an irrelevant topic, my reasons for thinking
these things are also not relevant and I'll spare you. ;)
Kent M Pitman <······@world.std.com> writes:
>
> Something someone told me a long time ago that has never turned out to
> lead me in the wrong direction:
>
> Never take on risk without someone paying you for the risk.
>
That's fine, software costs money.
In the personal case, where I give away my software, the `pay' comes
in non-monetary form: it (I hope) increases my reputation and
liklihood of getting a job.
·············@comcast.net writes:
> Kent M Pitman <······@world.std.com> writes:
>
> >
> > Something someone told me a long time ago that has never turned out to
> > lead me in the wrong direction:
> >
> > Never take on risk without someone paying you for the risk.
> >
>
> That's fine, software costs money.
>
> In the personal case, where I give away my software, the `pay' comes
> in non-monetary form: it (I hope) increases my reputation and
> liklihood of getting a job.
Well, every location in the world (especially the US) has a set of
prevailing laws which might restrict what one can and can't use in
order to decide who to hire. The remarks I make subsequently here and
in this thread are made in the philosophical abstract and are not
intended to say that I would violate prevailing law if it prohibited
me from taking the information you offer into account during
hiring. (Gads, I hate having to do such disclaimers, but it feels bets
to get that out of the way up front...)
If you unilaterally offer a piece of freeware with a claim of reliability,
it certainly sounds to me like you are opening yourself to substantial
personal risk of lawsuit and bankruptcy. As a poor, unemployed person,
that might be an acceptable risk to you. But if I (the generic "I", not
me personally, but people of like thought as me, if such is possible)
were to hire you, and pay you enough that you were not penniless, then
you become target for a lawsuit. If I think enough of you to think that
I will need you in the longrun, I would have to also examine risks to
your being around in the longrun. (This is a place where some businesses
are forbidden from taking some risks into account, even though they may be
what the law calls "logically relevant". So, for example, I maybe can't
look at whether you have this or that disease, or might contract it, and
I can't look at whether you might become pregnant, or what your gender
is, etc. Still, these rules are not created for the purpose of saying
"these things don't matter". They do matter. That's why we have to make
explicit rules saying that companies can't look at that info. But there
are matters that there are no rules against considering, and it would be
foolish to overlook.)
One would not hire someone who said "next week I plan to jump off a
mountain", for example. Maybe they're a really good programmer. But
if they're not going to be there, and for a reason that is legal to
consider, one ought to take that into account. Similarly, one might
not hire someone who says "I put GPL on all the software I write" if
the company doesn't buy into the GPL concept. It's just asking for
trouble. But you're maybe not saying that. The best case is you're
saying "If I were hired to write non-GPL software, that'd be cool, but
at least maybe if I write free software that I warrant is free of
bugs, people will think it's even cooler than if I write free software
that is not free of bugs."
But me, all I see (purely from the evidence presented, we're speaking
an abstract "you" for purposes of conversation--I'm not trying to
characterize you "in the whole" since I don't know you at all and I
certainly have no idea to slander that reputation you're working so
hard to enrich :), is that you're a potentially employee who might
fall off the face of the earth in lawsuits for voluntarily having
exposed himself to legal risk that it was not necessary to expose
himself to. And even if I did hire "you", I'm not sure I could let
you make business decisions (i.e., that I could ever promote you to
management) because I question the judgment involved in "unilateral
disarmament", that is, exposing yourself to new risk without getting
something in return. That's not how I would run a business and so
it's not the kind of person I would hire. Maybe others would.
I mention this not to make you feel bad or to say you're a bad person.
Just the opposite. I mention this in order to say that you may think
you're doing something that can only bring benefit upon yourself, but
I'm trying to offer you the ability to see it from another angle,
where you may be bringing risk.
Of course, you may have taken extraordinary steps in QA and/or have
released the product for 10 years of heavy use never getting any bug
reports and THEN added the claim of reliability. And this might
ameliorate some of my concern. But the idea that "all software should
just have stronger claims of reliability" is the thing I'm
questioning.
Just to close, let me say that the American Automobile Association
(AAA) has this thing where if you break down, they'll send someone
within 45 mins. Well, I broke down recently, and it took hours. The
weird thing is, as nearly as I can tell, AAA does nothing to ensure
their 45 minute claim. It just sounds good. I get no refund if
they're late. Not really even an apology. They don't penalize
anyone. They just grump at the few guys who have tow trucks in the
area that someone is waiting, even though they don't even pay well for
the service. (The tow truck is assumed to get some associated
business if they take you to their own place, and this is supposed to
compensate for the lousy pay they give for towing.) I don't know why
AAA does this, since I never asked for a specific 45 minute limit. If
I'm downtown, with a million places nearby, I expect better, frankly.
If I'm in the woods, I'm happy if it's two hours. All I want to know
is a REALISTIC time. And I can only assume that the 45 minute pledge
came from the same well-meaning but ill-thought-out source that this
"all software should be warrantied" thing comes from. I want to know
when I'm buying warrantied software and when I'm not. I want to know
when to wait 15 minutes and when to wait 2 hours. I can work around
accurate assessments just fine. I can't work around things that are
labeled for show. And the market can work around correct labeling
things, but not around "words for show". It's hard for a product to
compete with another product if one is held to its word and the other
is not, but neither is penalized.
Kent M Pitman <······@world.std.com> writes:
> ·············@comcast.net writes:
>
>> Kent M Pitman <······@world.std.com> writes:
>>
>> >
>> > Something someone told me a long time ago that has never turned out to
>> > lead me in the wrong direction:
>> >
>> > Never take on risk without someone paying you for the risk.
>> >
>>
>> That's fine, software costs money.
>>
>> In the personal case, where I give away my software, the `pay' comes
>> in non-monetary form: it (I hope) increases my reputation and
>> liklihood of getting a job.
>
> Well, every location in the world (especially the US) has a set of
> prevailing laws which might restrict what one can and can't use in
> order to decide who to hire. The remarks I make subsequently here and
> in this thread are made in the philosophical abstract and are not
> intended to say that I would violate prevailing law if it prohibited
> me from taking the information you offer into account during
> hiring. (Gads, I hate having to do such disclaimers, but it feels bets
> to get that out of the way up front...)
>
> If you unilaterally offer a piece of freeware with a claim of reliability,
> it certainly sounds to me like you are opening yourself to substantial
> personal risk of lawsuit and bankruptcy. As a poor, unemployed person,
> that might be an acceptable risk to you. But if I (the generic "I", not
> me personally, but people of like thought as me, if such is possible)
> were to hire you, and pay you enough that you were not penniless, then
> you become target for a lawsuit. If I think enough of you to think that
> I will need you in the longrun, I would have to also examine risks to
> your being around in the longrun. (This is a place where some businesses
> are forbidden from taking some risks into account, even though they may be
> what the law calls "logically relevant". So, for example, I maybe can't
> look at whether you have this or that disease, or might contract it, and
> I can't look at whether you might become pregnant, or what your gender
> is, etc. Still, these rules are not created for the purpose of saying
> "these things don't matter". They do matter. That's why we have to make
> explicit rules saying that companies can't look at that info. But there
> are matters that there are no rules against considering, and it would be
> foolish to overlook.)
[snip]
Well, I wouldn't advertise software I wrote to be free from all defects,
nor would I offer unlimited liability.
And even if you disclaim any responisibilty to software, you can still
be sued. (It may be far easier to get such a suit summarily dismissed,
but lawyers being what they are...)
So perhaps I can reduce my risk by not writing any software at all?
It would certainly reduce the risk of anyone hiring me.