Star Microsoft's Little Liability Problem
Linked by John O'Sullivan on Tue 7th Oct 2003 18:42 UTC
Law and Order Microsoft has a little liability problem called Windows. Many are no doubt aware of a would-be class-action lawsuit launched last week in California. The suit targets Microsoft over security problems. The plaintiff is a woman who had her identity stolen. Details are here. (NYTimes, free registration required)
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What comes around goes around
by BrazenRegent on Tue 7th Oct 2003 21:12 UTC

You actually rent Microsofts software, you pay to use it,
so yes they are fully responsable for the bugs and security flaws just as your landlord is for not fixing the pipes..

So is Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, and all the others whether you paid for it or not(downloaded).

This lawsuit is about defective software rather than the criminals that abused it. Our legal system here in the states makes sure that when a judicial ruling occurs that is based on no prior precedents, it establishes a new precedent which binds it into defacto law. If this suit succeeds these following situations will occur because the ruling will set a new precedent and will apply to all software free or fee.


My copy of Quake III crashed on Red Hat Linux, I'm gonna sue ID Software and RedHat for defective software and emotional distress.

or

My copy of gLabel crashed on Red Hat Linux and Gnome, I'm gonna sue the devlopers of gLabel, Gnome and RedHat for defective software, lost work time, and emotional distress.


I can just see it now, a lawsuit filed against VU and Valve next year by a user whos experiance with Half Life 2 was compromised by cheaters and sues for 100 million dollars for defective software and emotional distress.

This is like the Eolas v. Microsoft suit. You can't apply a law or ruling to against one entity and not apply it to similar violations by other entitys. That means the greedy lawyers now see a cash cow and will go after Adobe, Macromedia, Intel, Sun, Mozilla.org(and all incarnates), AOL, Real and others. Even the W3C will get hit by a lawsuit.


There is just to many lawyers and lawyers abusing the system.