Linked by John O'Sullivan on Tue 7th Oct 2003 18:42 UTC
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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Quote:
"1) development will slow down. The only reason open source applications can grow so fast on so slim resources is that they release frequently and use the users as beta testers (one can make an argument that Microsoft does the same thing). If developers are liable for screwing up the user's computer, they will err on the side of caution and spend time looking for bugs instead of making radical changes to their program. "
M$ development will slow down, and that's a good thing. Since they have a monopoly, they get new version out too often for large enterprise to have enough time to handle, and thus, cost millions of money to upgrade every 2-3 years, witch is unacceptable. The rest of the industry will inovate without fear of being purchased of copied. So it's a good thing.
Quote:
"2) small/independent developers will go out of business. Either they will have to buy liability insurance, or they will have to maintain an expensive notarized paper trail detailing how many hours they spent looking for what security flaw, or they will have to put up a bit notice saying "this is alpha release - I am not liable" and give ignorant customers an excuse to stick with big, suable vendors."
Small vendor almost allways produce more quality code and check more with their customers than M$ does. So they don't have to fear any of this. Those who do fear are the one that produce crappy software and should even be in the software field in the first place.
Quote:
"3) open source will be in serious trouble because of the slippery slope effect. If it becomes the duty of programmers to make secure code, perhaps someone could argue that only licensed, bonded programmers should be allowed to touch the keyboard. If you don't pay $$$ for a degree, and don't pass an official exam, and don't work for a licensed corporation, you just might lose the right to release software to the public. "
What are you talking about? Open source has nothing to worry since people that use that kind of software do it by choice, not because they have to upgrade because they're not supported? I think it will even boost OSS as they already produce quality software over quantity.