Software Regulatory Body? 108
Barbarian writes "This article at 3D Action
Planet discusses the possibility of a Software regulatory body, with
the power to impose fines on companies which release crashware. Although
the article ignores Open Source, it is insightful in it's assesment of
commercial software. The article pertains towards games, but it is intended to apply to the Software industry in general. " My only question: Much like the UN, where does the real power come from; how do the fines stick, and actually get paid?
hurm interesting idea but not very likely (Score:1)
Re:Unforeseen MS-HTML in links (Score:1)
This is Microsoft's fault (Score:1)
It isn't necessary! Consumer pressure is the answer. Once a company lets us down we know to avoid their products in future.
With the response:
Nice in theory, but in reality it isn't working, is it?
The reason it is not working is because of the effective monopoly Microsoft has that breaks the competitive market system. Note that in software domains in which Microsoft is not a player (yes these exist, such as many industrial embedded systems...telecom, manufacturing, etc) the market system is alive and well. Also note that in these competitive arenas the touted disclaimers in this article usually do not exist. To try to avoid accountability in the competitive arena is a negative factor for that products value.
Therefore, break the monopoly and you break the need for regulation. However, the game industry does not really fit the monopoly model. The game industry actually IS already competitive and it is the increased bandwidth available to consumers (to viably download demos) that is helping consumer pressure. I know that I would never buy a game without trying it first anymore. Game consumers are only now becoming aware. This issue will correct itself. For example, if one of the current next gen CIV games advertised that they guaruntee their features and quality I would choose that one for my CIV needs. At this point I will not play any of them since I refuse to invest my time in a game that could fail to deliver.
Re:Games are a bad example (Score:1)
1. Patches to fix "accidental" bugs that really,
really look like deliberate cheats for the AI;
e.g. SMAC, Close Combat 2.
2. Patches to fix hardware-related issues, be it
motherboard, video card, etc; too many to
count.
3. Patches to fix things that are quite possible
but never anticipated, e.g. doing things in
a different order making games unsolvable, or
leading to the bizarre (e.g. SMAC, using a
signed octet for city size, when you CAN
break 127; hello, size -128 city. Various
adventure games. And so forth.)
4. Reviewers that seemingly adore ANY product
that crosses their desk, ignoring such as the
above; practically any reviewer, gamer or
otherwise. Hordes of screenshots, glowing
hype about "new" features, and raves about
the publisher's claims (Stability! Runs
faster! Reboots faster! [um... but what if
I reboot 1x/year?] New file format! [Gee,
thanks, but no...], Terrain effects [but the
_Ancient Art of War_ had that in, what, 1988?]
etc), blatantly ignoring issues.
There's a lot of sloppiness out there on many parts, including frequently the consumer. And I'm not going to exempt Linux, either; consider all the various RH patches that relate to installation and so forth.
I've seen the occasional damn fine product that's stable AND useful (or, perhaps, useless but lots of fun). Wordperfect 5.1 worked quite well for me. A lot of the old Electronic Arts titles were quite spiffy (e.g. _Pinball Construction Set_; _Articfox_), as were such from other publishers. That's all pretty rare nowadays.
I wonder how much of this is due to the pressure to publish early and often...
We are not talking about Big Brother here (Score:2)
My understanding is that companies would only be fined for software that was flawed enough to prevent you from using it as intended, and only if a significant number of users made complaints about it. And the fines would be based on profit made from release date until the product was fixed, and therefore if you give your software away for free, then profits==0 and you therfore can't be fined. So Microsoft releasing a barely functional operating system could cost them $50 million, while some small company selling a word processor for $20 would lose considerably less money if their product was buggy and they fixed it in a timely manner.
The only problem I see with this system is that the users aren't compensated for their wasted time or lost data from a failure of a product. However, that could be solved with a law saying that a company can't exempt itself from consumer protection and warranty laws in an agreement (exceptions could be made for beta or free products which are clearly labeled as such). This way, if a product acutally caused harm (not just inconvenience) then you could always sue the company in court just as well as you could any other company, like a car company that makes exploding cars.
Although it needs to be well thought out before any action is taken, I think that this is a viable idea that could be very benificial to the end-users.
AB
Re:Certification would be nice, regulation no. (Score:1)
How do you garuntee that the panel stays unbiased? If you have Microsoft lovers on the panel, then I garuntee that Microsoft will be able to release anything under any conditions. If the panel only containes GNU advocates then it would be REALLY hard for ANY commercial company to get approved...
Re:Priorities (Score:1)
Using BlahWare 2001 will increase your productivity! Never reboot again!
And the damn thing crashes every 10 minutes, then you ought to be able to get your money back... The companies should not be allowed to sell broken software, not allow refunds, etc, etc...
> Sometimes simply getting something out there
>that works is more important.
Right. So what about software that you buy that doesn't work? This is not about where the priorities are, but rather against making false claims, selling shoddy programs and refusing to accept responsibility when your software breaks.
Re:Why not simply demand a refund? (Score:3)
What recourse does this leave the average consumer? There is no one to hold liable for broken software. Wait, wasn't that why companies don't want to use free software? Oh....
Games are a bad example (Score:3)
Re:? (Score:1)
Well, actually it is:
Altogether 26 errors found. Only 25 errors are listed below.
Warning (1/1): (!DOCTYPE) is missing.
Warning (6/1): The attribute "LEFTMARGIN" is not defined for the tag (BODY).
Warning (6/1): The attribute "TOPMARGIN" is not defined for the tag (BODY).
Error (6/1): In the tag (BODY) the attribute "MARGINWIDTH" is not allowed.
Error (6/1): In the tag (BODY) the attribute "MARGINHEIGHT" is not allowed.
Error (12/5): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Warning (12/5): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
Error (26/5): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (31/3): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (34/4): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Warning (37/4): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
Warning (44/3): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
Error (51/3): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (HR).
Error (71/3): The start tag for (/FONT) can't be found.
Error (73/3): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (78/2): In the tag (TD) the attribute "WIDTH" must only contain absolute pixel values.
Error (80/109): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (P).
Error (124/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (OL).
Error (146/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (150/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (156/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (159/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (163/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (167/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (169/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (171/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (173/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (BLOCKQUOTE).
Error (182/1): (FONT) must not contain block level tags like (P).
Error (195/71): The trailing ';' is missing in the definition "©".
Warning (210/5): The attribute "BACKGROUND" is not defined for the tag (TD).
Error (222/2): In the tag (INPUT) the attribute "BORDER" is not allowed.
Warning (222/2): The attribute "WIDTH" is not defined for the tag (INPUT).
Warning (222/2): The attribute "HEIGHT" is not defined for the tag (INPUT).
Error (242/4): The trailing ';' is missing in the definition "&image".
However, these are not about apostrophes
Re:"neither should any other" (Score:1)
Period.
If your argument is that it does work, I would ask, what changed?
Disappointed (Score:2)
*ahem* hm, that's coming out a bit strong.
What I'm saying is that this article is dead on the money, and some slashdot posters have begun to illustrate why. UL was mentioned. That is a very important clue to what is really at stake here.
How many items do you have IN ARM'S REACH which are certified by Underwriters' Laboratories? My soldering gun is UL listed. Here's an old Atari power adapter, UL listed. An old Tascam power adapter, UL listed. Hell, every power cable and AC adapter and power strip- _and_ my AT&T answering machine and Wacom tablet. The phone, the modem, the keyboard etc do not have UL listings- but all comply with FCC regulations, and they all have "RU" and "SA" listings (what are these then?)
What is so special about the software industry that it can't be accountable like everybody else? Hell, _you_ as a private citizen are accountable. Why does the software industry get rights you don't have yourself?
The reason all the power strips are UL listed is because (as an earlier poster noted) people were having electrical hardware 'crash' a lot. Yes, this is more life threatening- but come on now, software is not that innocent! At the computer shop where I work, we _must_ have two PCs to do business. The one in the front runs some accounting software and is the answering machine. The one in back is the bench machine, and it is the one we risk with software and plugging stray hardware into, and it's been rebuilt a couple times. The reason we can't do it on one machine is because if we dared, we would be risking all our records and our means of doing business at all, on the daft notion that software crashing couldn't hurt us. No no no! And so we've taken longer to pay off our debts because we _must_ run two PCs in order to be able to function. Does this sound like accountability in action? Yes- ours. On the other hand it's a glaring admission of just how damaging the software industry can be. How many consumers can afford to buy an entirely separate computer to keep important documents and electronic accounts on? Need I even mention the strong bias the industry shows toward having consumers load even _more_ critical data into their computers? All the mortgage information! Every critical business contact! Dad's medical records and scheduling of appointments! All that onto the creaking PC, then install DirectX 9.3.0.0.0! And what do you do for safety? Back up... onto ZIP DISKS! Which of course are their own very serious accountability concern, and not acceptable as an archival medium what with click of death and all. But by god, are they cheap!
We can't do this dance forever.
Now, I've touched on one valid issue- DirectX 12.0.0.0, as it were- the trouble of someone like Microsoft breaking everybody's work. Who pays? Who apportions blame? It's bad enough MS can just about selectively target whoever they wish to break (proprietary means nobody sees the code that says "if vendor == id then crash.die_ungrateful_pup!"), but if they could do that and then hammer the hapless victim with regulatory fines things would be totally impossible.
However, this isn't something to cower around whimpering about- it needs to be worked out. Just because something can't be done perfectly doesn't mean it shouldn't be done at all- I am sure there are scandals about UL abuses _somewhere_, or something is unjustifiably penalized, or some big company gets a break, but when did you last see an extension cord catch fire? A toaster explode?
I'm sorry: I for one am not at all impressed by pseudo-libertarian ranting and desperation to spare the software industry any accountability. Grow up! And the software industry has got to GROW UP too. There is no excuse for the current merry band of pirates. I'm not talking about warezpuppies- I'm talking about the VENDORS. Lay down some rules- have everybody straighten out. I can tell you that this would very likely curtail some abuses Apple's been responsible for, producing good stuff and then betraying it and axing it to the detriment of developers and consumers. It would put a damper on Microsoft. It would chill out those game developers risking systems, violating privacy etc: the point is, you want rules? Fine- _we_ come up with what needs to be covered, we already know many troubling areas to be aware of. You want no rules? That may not be your privilege.
Market Has Rejected This Idea (Score:1)
The market rewards the first-to-market. No one is going to give up market share in order to meet Level 5 of the CMM.
First-to-market is more important than quality to software businesses. Any company that ignores this and pursues the moral high-ground of quality is going to find themselves out of business. Sorry, thats just the way it is.
What happened to voting with dollars? (Score:1)
There is a section of this article that explains how an industry should not need regulation. The author then goes on to explain how the customers (the gamers, the analysts, the office workers, the fifth grader doing a book report, etc.) are important and must be protected through government regulation of industry. I don't buy it. Why not simply not endorse (through financial or social means of promotion) the "crap?"
Examples of "successful" regulation include governments controlling companies that control either scarce natural resources like oil or the very limited space and existing infrastructure of urban utilities (pole space for cable television, power lines, telephone service). Software, being simply the abstract ordering of a bunch of bits, isn't scarce. One can make as many copies of those bits as one wants, and at virtually zero cost.
The barrier to entry for competition in the software development industry is a $400 PC and a CD with GCC on it.
Re:"neither should any other" (Score:1)
Some logic that seems to work for me: Red Hat makes money selling Linux distributions and support. People do pay Red Hat for its products. Red Hat continues to grow. Microsoft continues to "recognize" Linux as... something. Microsoft doesn't recognize grass in my lawn because it's not any threat to their revenue stream (at least not yet). They recognize Novell, Sun, Be, Apple, Red Hat, etc. as threats to their revenue stream--people who support Red Hat have made Microsoft recognize this.
Re:Doesn't anyone have a clue for their self ? (Score:1)
You may want to request that people restain themselves, if you so wish, but given the latter sentence in your remark >>I guess none of you have any other thoughts in your clueless fragile minds then "We hate Microsoft - We fuck Penguins" I would assume that you merely needed an outlet yourself, so it is quite understandable.
Re:We need a new moderation category: (Score:1)
Sir, please do explain, but remember that this, by nature, is a political argument, and thus some opinions may offend some people.
Re:Libertarianism, Faith, and Logic (Score:1)
In and of itself, it's kinda vague.
You mean to say it didn't propose regulation? Whether for it all the way or just playing with the idea, I think it did raise the notion.
Why don't we force all companies to hire at least one homeless person a year. That would be a wonderful idea too. A small price for them, and it will help society at large. Great idea, right?
This is totally unrelated. There is no parallel at all between on the one hand holding companies responsible for the quality of their products, and on the other hand making them hire homeless people.
I never said there was. I will explain in a moment.
You seem to be saying, "in both cases we're passing a law, so it's the same thing either way."
Not quite, although I see how it can be termed that way.
My point was, that we should not force others to do what we want. Whether taking responsibility or taking action.
I see where you are trying to point a flaw in my argument. I disagree on it being a flaw, as I just explained point, but I could have better argued with a different point. Thank you, I'll have to keep that in mind.
There are, in some states, laws limiting the amount of liability a vendor (a vendor of things in general, not software in particular) can blow off by denying all responsibility in the EULA.
What does existing regulation have to do with this? I just wanted to present, and possibly argue , a point.
Forgive me if I've been listening to what libertarians say rather than what they claim to believe,
Forgive you? About what?!?! And what does Liberatarianism have to do with this at all?
but in practice libertarianism is all about rights and nothing about responsibility.
That is certainly debatible, but way off topic here. How you determine rights or responsibility will vary from person to person.
You cannot start forcing others to do what you want. That's a socialist agenda in a free society. A contradiction to itself.
Okay, here's where you go so far off the rails that it's not even worth talking to you.
Ah, so why do you waste your time.
There's no way to discuss that remark, because you definition of "socialist" is radically different from the non-libertarian definition.
Hmm.. I am begining to think that you are calling me a Liberatarian. Interesting. I don't know where it came from, but it is interesting how when someone comes up with a radical idea, he is a Liberatarian. Whether I am or not is irrelevant.
I also thought most people agreed on what Socialism was. I meant it here as the first definition in Webster's Online Dictionary .
"1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods."
How do you translate it?
Basically it seems to mean "infidel": "Anybody who doesn't share my rather eccentric view of the world".
Where did I ever call anyone anything? I merely said that I believe regulation is a form of laziness. Is there something else that I said?
Libertarian is reductionistic to the point of bearing a close resemblance to religious faith. If it comes to that, though, I'd sooner argue with a priest about the Trinity. After all, priests are trained to back up their views with logic, and very few of them resort to name-calling.
Name calling? If I offended you, I am sorry. But where did I call anyone a name?
Whenever I point out that a libertarian is relying on faith rather than evidence and logic, they always say, "but libertarianism is all ABOUT logic! I'm logical by definition!" Well, that's poor logic right there, and at any rate, saying "logic logic logic" over and over doesn't make you logical; it makes you repetitive.
I'm left aghast at this last part.
First you mention discussions with Liberatarians(, of which I still have no idea why you brought them up). Second, you argued on a point (i.e. "Well, that's poor logic right there") without backing it up. Third, your last sentence sounds more like a sound byte than anything else.
While your first statements lured me into your reply, I now am beginning to regret that decision. You started off by arguing a point, mentioned something that had no relevance, and then took the high road by saying that I'm not worth arguing with, while you then seem to make nonsensical statements stemming from fervor.
I merely made a comment. A _comment_! A personal opinion. And what do I get for this. First a comment from a user calling me names, and now you with a message full of spite?
Did I do something wrong in posting a comment? Has the first ammendment alrady been repealed? Has Rob restricted his website to only one form of comment?
Well, I actually await you reply, and hope to argue it out. You do seem to have analytical capabilities, and it would be a pleasure -- and an honor -- to do so.
I do ask two favors though. One, please refrain from bringing in examples of what others have done or said, unless it is actually helpful to the main point. And second, please point out if I call anyone a name. I certainly do not mean to offend anyone.
Good Idea, possibly. Has anyone read The Republic? (Score:4)
While this may be a completely political argument, I think that regulation always is. And I'll tell you straight out, I, for one, am against it.
Regulating others so you gain is a very lazy way of getting things done. The point of the article was that by regulating the industries, we will gain. Is this really a good argument? Why don't we force all companies to hire at least one homeless person a year. That would be a wonderful idea too. A small price for them, and it will help society at large. Great idea, right?
You cannot start forcing others to do what you want. That's a socialist agenda in a free society. A contradiction to itself.
Enough of that. Now, let us imagine that such a regulatory commision came into place, and had such authority as would be needed. Now a company has some really fantastic software, but does not have the resources to test it properly, or even ensure it, due to how large it is. For example, let us imagine that a start-up company comes out with this radically new operating system, that millions of people are dying to get their hands on. However, due to the complexity of the system, and the lack of a world-wide testing base, the company does not have the funds to back it up. So they decide that due to the demand they'll release it as "not suitable for any purpose" and hopefully fix it as they get reports and a cash flow. Would a regulatory committee be helpful here?
Such a comittee could not have one test for all software to pass. It is a very large industry. In fact, each piece of specialized software would have to have its very own specialized test. So who decides what the test is and what it needs to pass? Will a company be able to distribute beta software? Whose to stop companies from charging for beta software and never making a "final" release?
I think a completely different approach must be taken. That is, if it is you that want this committee then it is you that must form it. And the companies do not have to join unless they want to. Or have something similar Consumer's Reports magazine. Just create a group that will buy and test software for those who care to read the magazine. This way, supply and demand would run the show, not some frustrated individual who wants to force his own ideas upon others.
This sort of thing bothers me (Score:2)
My problem with this sort of thing is that, once again, it presupposes that the average consumer is too stupid to spend his money wisely and requires some sort of Big Brother to tell him (for a "small" administrative fee) what he can and cannot buy.
If consumers were really concerned about software reliability, they wouldn't buy the software that they do (I am not talking about operating systems which are largely imposed on the consumer, I am talking about applications). The fact is that consumers are relatively happy with what they are getting and regard it as reasonable value for the price. We as developers are upset about software unreliability because we know what is possible but no one else really cares.
For about a year now I have had a one year guarantee on the software I write. It says that if the consumer finds a bug during that period I will fix it for free. Guess how many people saw that guarantee and went Wow! Now that is the sort of guarantee I want! ? NONE!
Go ahead, ask any end user which they would rather have: the software they've got that crashes every once in a while or software that is guaranteed to never crash for twice the price with half the features. I have a full year's worth of empirical data that says they would rather have the cheap software (and no, my software is not twice the price and I will include any feature that does not compromise reliability).
One last thing, the reason that electrical items are required to have a UL sticker is because a faulty electrical item will kill you. A faulty game or word processor is just annoying.
Unworkable (Score:4)
Enforcing this sort of thing by law is difficult. In the past some progress has been made by putting requirements in bidding conditions for government sales. This is why almost every OS under the sun has a Posix compatibility layer. Not that the NT layer is much use. You can't use it at the same time as the normal API and if you want to be secure you have to remove it [microsoft.com].
(Btw. this seminar, which I saw on the Heise [heise.de] newsticker has a few other pearls, like the fact that most firewalls can't tell the difference between a virus and a Windows NT service pack [microsoft.com]. Nor can I :-)
Whose bug is it anyway? (Score:4)
However.
Sometimes M$ will release a new version of DirectX which causes our application to stop working (pretty much every release has done this). Whose bug is this? Is it M$'s bug? As much as I'd like to blame them, they *do* have the right to change the API. And generally, newer versions of DX have sucked less than the previous versions. Is it ours? Our code was 100% compliant with DX(n-1).
This is the kind of situation that bothers me the most, quite frankly. Our software runs right, but because the user has changed/has never upgraded/is experimenting with/has poured water on their computer, our software ceases to function. We work to fix these bugs, but I refuse to believe that some *fine* of some kind would help. Better customer communication is all it really takes...
Certification would be nice, regulation no. (Score:1)
What if a body were to certify the software's EULA?
A stamp of approval would only appear on packages which do not contain false advertising, have decent return policies, and are gauranteed to work.
If an end-user buys a game with ridiculously low system requirements, finds it unplayable, calls the company and is told "Sorry sir, you've opened the cellophane.", the End-user could call up the certificaiton body and tell them that they have been stiffed by a member.
Sort of a BBB for software.
I could imagine heaps of cash wasted on stupid people returning software because they can't read a manual, but that's the norm these days.
Just a thought.
Isn't his examples illegal already? (Score:3)
/El Niño
Re:Why not simply demand a refund? (Score:2)
- fit for it's given purpose. This is not trivial; you would have to say what you want to use it for and have the seller affirm that it is suitable. If you buy a package you want to run under NT and it only runs under 95, you only have recourse to the seller if you stated your needs at the time of purchase. If you walked in and bought the package without saying anything, there is no legal requirement for the store to accept the return of the item.
- of merchantable quality
The latter point is most pertinant in this case. If the software is not "of merchantable quality", you have a right to some recourse from the seller (ie, the shop you bought it from). They in turn can go to the publisher and sue them for supplying them with shoddy goods (this has a slightly different legal standing, but that's another point). In any case, the consumer is protected. However, proving or disproving "merchantable quality" is not the easiest of tasks.I'm assuming most countries have similar legislation in place.
--
Re:Market Has Rejected This Idea (Score:1)
Re:Lame regulations (Score:3)
POSIX and TCP/IP are standards they say nothing of the software process and the insured higher quality one gets from adhering to it (i.e. I can write a completely POSIX compliant OS that still has a large number of bugs/KLOC (KLOC == 1000 Lines of Code)). The same applies to TCP/IP and all of the other protocols you've used as an example.
I disagree we do need a higher entry level barrier. It would discourage those that are not ready to develop software even though they may think they are. Writing Visual Basic does not a programmer make, however; a made programmer can write Visual Basic.
If what you mean by small developer is those not yet quite capable then it should be made difficult if not impossible (You go try and practice Civil Engineering without a License). They are definitely not ready to be responsible for the delivery of quality software. If by small you mean a small number then your argument is wrong. 5 to 10 highly qualified software engineers whose organization is rated at CMM LEVEL 4 could blow away in terms of quality any CMM LEVEL 1 organization.
If the argument is for higher quality software ( i.e. Zero Defects) then the solution is in the process and its management.
Why don't you pick up Managing the Software Process or A Discipline for Software Engineering by Watts Humphrey. After all he can say it a whole lot better than I, although admittedly more verbose.
Regulation is OK, but (Score:4)
Now before all of you start getting your underwear in a wad let me explain.
The reason I think we see all of this poorly written software is two-fold.
First although there are many developers out there few of them can grasp the complexity of the development PROCESS. This often leads to bad estimates, rushed schedules, and a chaotic process. All in all you end up with a "get it out the door" attitude, so we can keep our jobs, or in more dire situations keep our company.
Secondly for the developers that do understand the development process life becomes increasingly difficult. Those developers have to deal with explaining to managers, customers, ceo's why it's going to cost so much money to write that piece of software. This is difficult to explain and in my experience always a losing proposition. I'll use an analogy to illustrate. Anyone involved in the Construction of a High Rise building (15 or more floors) can tell you that it is a process which involves hundreds of people (bricklayers, steel workers, earth movers, pile personnel, contractors, structural and consulting engineers). The individual contractors are all guided by the General Contractor which normally answers to the Structural or Project Engineer. The structural or Project Engineer requires the services of other specialized engineers for geotechnical advice and quality assurance. During the whole construction process the set of blueprints the Structural Engineer put together are used to complete and verify the work. During each phase of work the consulting engineers come in and verify that each contractor is fulfilling the specification given in the blueprints.
Software design is very much like that if not almost identical, yet ask a developer about the lifecycle of the software process, the CMM, software size estimation, code reviews and you'll often get very misguided answers if you get any at all. All of the elements in the software process are engineering disciplines in and of themselves yet I meet Project Managers who have no training or knowledge in this area, even self taught.
So if you asked a bunch of people who don't know how to create the blueprints for a high rise, to calculate the loads on the foundation and determine the proper number of piles. To determine the strength (psi) of the concrete to utilize for the slabs. To determine what amount of reinforcement steel (re-bar sizes, tie off separation, and quantity) should be placed in the load bearing sections of the wall. To calculate the loads on the structural steel, the required torque at each joint in the frame, the type of bolt (ANSI XXX), washer and nut to use. You would see a lot more buildings falling down and those that did not would be so grossly overbuilt (Empire State) that only a handful would be able to afford them. This IMHO is the current state of the software industry.
This question of regulation goes hand in hand with professional regulation and when that happens the price of software will go up as it should. Also the cost of entry into the software field will be much steeper. When it happens I think we will all be much better off but the number of people entering the software field will be diminished significantly.
Government Regulation (Score:3)
I could go on and on about the evils of government regulation, but I won't. Suffice it to say that it's appropriate in only a few very limited circumstances, and this is definitely not one of them. What is needed here, if anything, is a consumer organization, or perhaps several of them, to give software companies and products a seal of approval. No government intervention, no official bodies. Each consumer groups sets its own criteria. Each individual decides whether or not to put any faith into any particular consumer group's seal of approval. No, it's not perfect. It relies on the vigilance of the consumer. But it would be at least as effective as government regulation, and with fewer problems.
And to be honest, I don't think anything is necessary here. I don't buy computer products, software or hardware, until I've done a little research on them. I don't buy a game on impulse because it has a flashy, cool-looking box. I buy only after reading reviews and talking to others that have played the game. This way, I never end up with crappy software. The people that do are the ones that just walk into the store and pick up the coolest-looking box. Honestly, I don't care if they get screwed, because it's their own fault. As the old saying goes, there's a sucker born every minute. There's no way to prevent suckers from getting suckered, so don't make life hard on the rest of us by trying.
Mistaking regulation for accountability (Score:2)
The problems he cites with licenses could be solved by a simple law preventing those kind of bogus licenses.
The example he has of some regulatory body fining a company 11 weeks profits is far beyond anything any current regulatory body does.
--
Re:Unworkable (Score:2)
BR A good question. Hopefully I can provide a good answer. Let's take your example. Coke has been producing CocaCola Classic for about, mmmm.. 100 years now. Is their recipe worth millions? Coke thinks so. Nobody knows the recipe to make coke - there are 2 people, each with only part of the recipe.. and they're never allowed to meet together. But how valuable is it.. really?
Would you buy a product that was identical to cocacola classic.. even if it was cheaper? Why not? What about KFC? Those 11 herbs and spices - they seem to be curiously similar to pepper and a few other household ingredients.
Here's my point: trade secrets aren't important. Brand name recognition is. In this world of Microsoftianism and "offensive" marketing, I would think this community would be the first to see the connection.
--
oh god no, not more laws (Score:1)
The UL concept of voluntary compliance is a damn good idea in my opinion. I wouldnt say the UL model is the one to follow, but the basic concept works for me. I _DEFINITELY_ say no government agency should be involved. If anyone has a good model to follow, can implement it for a voluntary compliance of reliability and functionality, and can make money in the process, go for it. I personally cannot, so I'll shut my trap for now
Take care.
The True Dork
Agreed, government regulation = bad (Score:4)
Firstly, how are you going to get this legislation passed? That in and of itself seems like it would require big bucks for lobbying in all the various countries. Plus, all the laws would be different if it did get passed.
Secondly, how would you ensure that the government bureau policing software has a clue? Or that they don't develop a political agenda that they pursue above and beyond objective good science? Or that they don't just get bought off? The nasty thing about these kind of government bureaus is that after they're in place their decisions have the force of law, but they're not accountable to anyone. You can't vote them out, no matter how bad a job they do.
Lastly, it's only reactive: the shitty games still hit the market, and the bureau only penalizes the companies after the consumer has already gotten shafted. That's IF the company is still around and in the black.
Instead, and for a fraction of the cost, you could set up an Underwriter's Laboratory type of indie regulation agency, where they would test the stuff and if it met some criteria, give it the Sacred Fist of Judgement Seal of Decency. If it was a well-known and sought after seal, like the UL seal is for electrical appliances, it would have the desired effect: people would look for it when shopping. If enough people surfed the regulation agency's website, they might even make enough money off ads to defray some of the costs. They could also charge game companies to review their products for them, but that would only be feasible if they were already established as a standard.
This type of system works pretty well when Sony certifies games for the playstation. It's fairly rare to even find a significant bug. Of course, Sony has a complete lock on this sales channel, because you can't put a playstation logo on the game without their okay, which an indie agency would not have.
Anyway, these are my thoughts.
Jon
Why not simply demand a refund? (Score:1)
If a game a game won't run properly when the hardware requirements sticker
on the box matches your system, go back to the shop and demand a refund. If a game is a real dog, use the Net to organise en masse to ask for refunds. If enough people complain long and loud enough (and have good reason) retailers will take notice - and will breathe down the neck of game publishers who release under-tested games.
Re:Whats next? (Score:1)
Regulation is not going to work. (Score:1)
You can't sell software without warranty period.
Those who code for free won't be affected (their projects will die automaticly if of poor quality), those who make money unfairly by exploiting powers of monopoly or just sell plainly crap product will rightfully suffer.
The situation where all products and services have warranty (which ensures quality) except software is not acceptable. Legally it should not be allowed to sell DISCLAIMED software (again unless it's free). Have you seen a car without warranty? And software is responsible for safe flights and running nuclear plants.
AtW,
http://www.investigatio.com [investigatio.com]
Refunds for products that are unasable (Score:1)
Re:Agreed, it's the wrong answer. (Score:1)
IMO, the "right" way to deal with this issue is to allow users a refund for nonfunctional software. This puts the power back into the hands of consumers. Personally, I have been succesful returning nonfunctional software ( and other products ).
Then your consumer protection laws are inadequate (Score:1)
But giving consumers the right to a refund when they purchase a POS is essential. If consumers are having difficulty getting refunds on defective products, then this is the problem, and it should be addressed directly , by giving consumers due recourse. A pseudo-government acting on behalf of the consumers is an unnecessary layer between the customer and the seller, annd does little to empower buyers.
Re: So enact laws to allow the consumer a refund (Score:1)
Re:Unworkable (Score:2)
well, this would certainly be great for linux, but I have a very hard time justifying it. Why should a company be forced to disclose all their trade secrets ? If I discover a superb recipe for soft drink, should I be forced to disclose it to my competitors ? Your proposed law would punish innovaters. The problem is that your levelling of the playing field puts innovators on the same level as copycats. rather than on the basis of being locked into compatibility with their own data, other users or certain hardware.
The market can decide whether being locked in is bad or not.
Instead of interfering with the mechanisms of free competition, you remove some of the monopolistic forces that are preventing them from working.
You also remove the basic freedom of innovators to keep trade secrets.
By the way, the article was referring at least in part to games, where "file formats" and "closed APIs" are non issues, but nevertheless, buggy software is released ...
This is disgusting (Score:1)
In other words: if I'm not happy, I'm going to screw you over, and your rights/needs are irrelevant. This article displays an incredible level of arrogance, and an incredible lack of understanding of the way regulation works. For example:
The industry's regulator could look at the situation and decide that from the time the game was released, until the time it should have been released, was a total of eleven weeks. So they calculate how much profit was made during that time and that's the fine they impose. In other words, they completely nullify any benefit for software being rushed out the door.
As anyone who's ever worked on a software project knows, there are always more bugs. You can nail the big ones, but if you try to nail every single bug before releasing a piece of software, it literally will never get released, unless you drastically limit your feature set. Nor is it clear what constitutes a "bug."
So this guy is talking about giving some beaurocrat the power to decide when a piece of software "should" be released. I'll bet money this beaurocrat isn't gonna be a software engineer. So the chances of hiim making good decisions is close to zero.
Beyond that, it's not even clear that waiting is a good thing. In some cases, consumers benefit from recieving buggy software six months early. If it is a game, for example, and the rendering engine doesn't look quite right, who cares? If we force companies to add several months to their debugging cycle, you simply lengthen the wait for new products. This hardly denefits consumers.
Re:Has anyone tried to return software? (Score:1)
There are other ways to tell if a software package is good or not--reviews, demos, talkiing with friends, etc. And this policy prevents a LOT of potential piracy.
Regulation (Score:1)
And no, this is not a "pseudo-libertarian" argument. It is a Libertarian one.
An interesting question... (Score:1)
Quality is unquestionably an important factor in software engineering. But this certification question brings to light some interesting thoughts. Does ISO900x certification eliminate bug-ridden or sloppy code? And will software undergoing a check for compliance be certified only for a given platform, with a given set of components?
This would all seem to have some very interesting implications.
The Current System is Broken (Score:1)
I would like to see a law that eliminated the bogus license agreements that disclaim all warranties and responsibilities. Unfortunately, the trend in the proposed revision to the U.C.C. (Uniform Commercial Code) is in the opposite direction.
The current economic/legal system rewards companies that release a buggy POS now instead of reliable software later. This has to change.
Software reliability can be measured and improved. It takes time, money and training. Here [aol.com] is a quick overview of Software Reliability Engineering by John Musa, who is one of the pioneers in the field.
Bad regulatory comittee! Bad! (Score:4)
I have several other problems, but MAN! I have to stew on it more.
Re:The laws exist already (Score:1)
-josh
The laws exist already (Score:2)
Fraud on the part of the seller invalidates the contract. This applies to exploding Ford Pintos and the software industry equally.
If you want to get into legislating penalties for anything other than fraud or gross negligence I think you will be entering a legal quagmire that will stifle creative and innovation.
As someone else suggested an external testing/verification lab similar to the UL would be a welcome innovation. We have this now to a certain extent in the form of trade mag reviews and test labs - but it would be nice to have that stamp of approval BEFORE the product is released.
-josh
selling (Score:1)
RedHat, and other commercial distributions, are "selling" free software, and would be held responsible for the quality. Either Red Hat would go out of business, or would have to drastically reduce the amount of software in the distribution, leaving in only what it can support. (This would probably be Kernel 2.0.30something, and a bunch of basic tools.)
Hello - HARDWARE? (Score:1)
Taking away our rights (Score:3)
enfore software quality, if the release of every
game has to be approved (or more likely is
followed by lawsuits from disgruntled customers)
then companies will be encouraged not to innovate
or take risks. I would prefer to accept a
certain proportion of rubbish games, with most
weeded out by reviewers than have every one
produced to the same formulas. If this become
popular then politicians would probably be keen to use it to introduce censorship.
A quality standard already exists (Score:1)
How many computer corps are ISO 900x certified ?
Re:But this isn't ISO 900x (Score:2)
I am currently working with the quality people in my company (as a computer consultant for them). What I learned of this work is that more and more companies build a quality system. I do not know about computer related companies however. If I do not know figures, it seems to me that the trend is getting stronger and stronger, because :
* they can use cert as a marketing feature
* they get good things back (better internal communication, better failure detection, generally... better organization)
As I already wrote, this does not mean you get a good product at the end, but it definitevely help not to do a bad one
If computer corps did some procedure explaining how to introduce a new feature in a software, and how to test it, I think lots of bugs would be catched long before the product hit the market. But the problem is they just pour new features as soon as competitors introduce them in they own soft... no review, no desgin, few testing... look at M$ and meditate
A funded standards/reviewing body (Score:1)
Perhaps a start would be a website which serves as a database of bugs and documentation of crashes for all software, with moderators who are USERS, might work to provide an objective analysis of various commercial packages out there.
why we don't have cert./regulations/insurance now? (Score:1)
regulations may work partially, but since rules can't change frequently, it's definitely will be a failure when regulatiors can't catch up the technology appeared. Also, be careful for those big companies like M$ that can put money in politics to kill off competition from small company by regulations.
the best way seems to be like the UL mentioned somewhere above. Insurance companies have the incentive to avoid paying claims by avoid having the software clash. So, most properly insurance companies would like to investigate the software under the insurance throughoutly and if they say, yes, we do the business, that piece of software shouldn't be too bad and a set of environment for normal operations are also discovered.
however, why we don't have that good working mechanism now? I would bet, when a system clash happen, it's infeasible to determine which piece of software is the reason. Sometimes, it's the hardware. So, in that case, insurance company have too many way to escape from the compensation, and so insurance can't reduce the risk enough for consumer willing to pay for it.
on the other hand, if even insurance company have the difficulty to determine which software is clash-proof, the market simply cannot exist.
take a look, as there's no case indicate M$ has to compensate for their customers when blue screens appear, and M$ knows that whenever they don't provide the source codes, no insurance company could have adequate risk evaluation, so no business could be done seriously. Other than M$, the market is simply too small for even one insurance company to get in the market (cannot share the risk).
Sure you can have a law that put insurance to every piece of software, but it never work well in that case. The auto-insurance doesn't make the road safer. Indeed, I would believe people drive more aggressively since insurance would cover all damage. Software companies would make worse software if insurance always cover it.
Voluntary Industry Association (Score:2)
It would be world wide, and member companies would agree to a set of principles related to usability, refund policy, and so forth. These companies would agree to the association having the power to levy fines up to some limit and in return the companies would be able to put a ``certification mark'' on their software packages.
Failure to live up to the principles would result in fines, and possibly revoking of permission to use the certification mark.
Of course, this would only have significance if customers showed a serious preference for software with the quality certification mark. Some (government/corporate) clients might make certification a requirement for RFPs.
Cost of the association would be covered by membership fees, and fines.
I think a point of contention in such an arrangement would be ensuring that the association was tough enough. If this was all initiated by software vendors, they would likely not want the association taking action except in the most severe circumstances. While the association would want to _appear_ consumer oriented, it would in fact be trying to act on behalf of it's members.
Perhaps the association could require a majority of board members be representatives from consumer organizations rather than industry folks.
This model is used at least somewhat successfully in many industries.
Oh, gimme a break! (Score:1)
I dunno about you, but I should not have to read a review of a product to figure out whether or not it works before I buy it.
Performance "problems"? Ok... maybe I'll give you that. Depends on the problems. If the program is simply slow (or something), that's one thing. When I buy a car, I will talk to knowledgeable people and read reviews (comparaison shop) before I buy one.
But I expect the car to run. I expect it to do what it was designed to do, at a bare minimum. I expect it to perform to specification.
If not, that's false advertising, among other things. Companies that make other types of products are accountable to this. Why the hell not software makers?
If the product works, but poorly, ok. But if it doesn't work to spec, it should not be for sale at all!!!
--
- Sean
Re:Games are a bad example (Score:1)
Regulation etc... (Score:1)
since he mentions OFTEL and regulation of the
telecoms industry.
[Although, I must admit I always thought
without OFTEL we would have nothing *but*
BT and even more outrageous phone costs
than we currently do. But then that's
tangential]
As I see it the basic problem is that currently
we don't buy software - we buy licenses to use
software.
DISCLAIMER
I'm not a lawyer so caveat emptor on the rest
of this.
If software was a normal good, then (in the UK)
it would be subject to the Sale Of Goods Act.
One provision of this is that any goods sold
*must* be "fit for purpose". This is a basic
consumer right in the UK and can't be overridden
by (say) sticking labels on the thing saying that
if you open the packet then it's OK.
The courts take a dim view of people selling
shoddy goods and even for minor infractions
you can always go to the small claims court.
So I don't know: are there any problems involved
in forcing software to be sold as a normal good?
I can see that the software producers wouldn't
be too keen.
Re:An old idea, regurgitated again (Score:1)
It is easy to find out what kind of quality a software has by reading reviews of it. This is certainly true for games.
Two examples are "Sin" and "Unreal". Both are good games which were probably released a little too early. Their respective bugs and/or performance problems were extensively documented and discussed in on-line reviews within a week of their respective releases.
So what is the problem, other than dumb consumers who don't bother to find out what they are buying? That problem will never be fixed.
Re:An old idea, regurgitated again (Score:1)
Govt. regulation IS dumb and unneccessary.
Re:Unforeseen MS-HTML in links (Score:1)
Who gets the blame for loose specs? (Score:1)
Who would get the blame? The Program's developer/distributor who didn't do enough testing? The OS maker for "certifying" devices that don't work properly? The video card or mother board maker for not adhering to specs?
thank you! (Score:1)
Thank you for the explination. I will look into the way my browser handles character sets. I have been really puzzled by the appearance of these "question marks" and I wouldn't have guessed the reason.
Re:Bad regulatory comittee! Bad! (Score:2)
I agree with you. Extra regulation is not a good idea.
If I want to write a piece of software, I don't want it combed over by an oversight committee. I don't want to be forced to provide any warranties--- especially if I don't charge for it and I realease it GNU style. This is not a hypothetical example-- I'm speaking quite personally and probably for all the people who write things like "ls" and "bunzip" and "freeciv" and so on and so on. This seems like a major problem. The article points to two types of software companies
- Those that give the customer what he's payed for
- And those that don't
Of course, there are more kinds of software than two. And more than just two plus GNU. I know the editorialist seems focused on games, but his recomendations are certainly far more sweeping--- that's the danger with regulation. Special regulation would probably sway me away from releasing software and whether my programs are good or bad, keeping them to myself because of artificial rules is definitely bad.Moreover, not only do I think regulation is bad, I don't think it's necessary. While the author explains himself quite clearly, I think he could simplify his entire editorial by posing his complaints with the EULs. Other than those, I can't see why natural free market pressures wouldn't releive some of the perceived difficulties. Write poor game--->get bad review--->have low sales--->lose money.
\begin{OFFTOPIC}
Why are there question marks instead of apostrophes? I've seen that before. The editors must not see that on their screens, why not? If you look at the HTML, there's no funny markup there, just " ? " instead of " ' ". So strange.
\end{OFFTOPIC}
Who Regulates Regulators? (Score:1)
Will these regulations allow only what is regulated?
How will someone determine if the problems are due to the application or operating system?
UL model doesn't reach far enough (Score:3)
The litmus test for any proposed regulation of consumer software quality should be SoftRAM 95. Didn't it go out with a "Designed for Windows 95" seal of approval that Microsoft subsequently yanked?
Coincidentally, today's San Jose Mercury News reports that the software industry is campaigning for regulations which would modify the Uniform Commercial Code to codify the terms of EULA's, something that has consumer groups up in arms.
Bad Contracts (Score:2)
Also, the article says the company would be fined. Who receives the fine? How do you quantify the time when a product should have really been released?
The people who suffer the most from buggy software are large companies buying site licenses (or large numbers). If the software is buggy, they lose trackable dollars and time. More often than not, large counts of license are negotiated through contracts that supersede those contained in the wrapper. Hence, those who suffer the most from buggy software already have the problem dealt with: custom contracts. Everybody else is out the $50. Bad products=bad PR. Bad PR=poor business in the future.
(To FS/OS folks: According to this guy's fine calculation equation: fine=$$ lost if the s/w were released when it was ready. therefore.... for FS/OS fine=$0. You get what you paid for. Way to go folk! Beat the system again!!!)
Re:We are not talking about Big Brother here (Score:1)
Money Talks (Score:3)
It's a system. (Score:1)
If we were talking about a Pinto exploding - great, it's clear where the fault is. If, however, we're talking about some game or some app, Is it flaky undocumented DirectX bugs, bugs in the API, bugs in OEM specific hardware driver, simple interaction with another (seemingly) unrelated piece of software, or is it the fault of the software that's acting up?
People do not realize that the software that exhibits the symptoms is not necessarily the one causing the problems.
As for what we can do as an industry to make this situation better... We simply can't turn back and kill all of the complexity in the system. We need to support models which separate these different layers of software. We need to support a model which seperates the GUI from the kernel, and which, within the kernel has a modular design. We need to support a model which standardizes interfaces and supports those standards fully. (as opposed to a certain OS that claims to be POSIX but doesn't even have a fork syscall) We need to support a model which deals with things like shared libraries in a rational well-defined manner. Most of all, we need to support a model which allows us to find out what problems are and fix them.
The reality is this. A government appointed regulatory body sitting around trying to point fingers can't do squat to fix the problems existing. A collaborative attempt must be made by computer professionals (and particularly open-source professionals) to define a model for understanding the interactions of different pieces of the system.
K, so that's my gobbledygook for the day
Re: compelled disclosure (Score:1)
There is a long history of requiring manufactured items to have documented specifications. You don't have to specify how you produce the object, but you do have to specify the item in sufficient detail to allow meaningful competition. A car manufacturer, for instance, can't prevent aftermarket competition for components such as fan belts, oil filters, window glass, even body panels. Or much more, flipping through the aftermarket catalogues for my Jeep...
In the software world, I believe the existing philosophy allows the government (and users) to require file formats be adequately documented to allow third party tools to be used with those files, but it doesn't require that the exact algorithm be documented.
I know that there are some significant legal questions with compelled disclosure of the details of the file format, but I also know that the existing attitudes of some software publishers is nothing short of irresponsible. If I use a software tool to manage the financial books of my company, who owns that information? Some software companies would have you believe that they, and they alone, own that information.
If that's so, does it not follow that the manufacturer of the hard disk also owns the information stored on the disk? Or that the manufacturer of filing cabinets owns the information stored within them?
you remove the basic freedom of innovators to keep trade secrets
In software, your trade secrets lie in your algorithms. You can document the associated file format without providing details of the algorithm that manipulates them, or you could document a public file format and implement a complete import/export utility. (Unlike the import/export utilities commonly provided today.)
Priorities (Score:2)
Re:Bad regulatory comittee! Bad! (Score:1)
It's ISO8859-1 character code 146, which is the "filled-in-9-looking" apostrophe commonly used in printing. Whoever edited the text for the article must've had something akin to the Mac's "smart quoting" option turned on.
If your browser is properly configured, it should've displayed the article properly. Maybe yours is only displaying 7-bit ASCII characters and throwing everything else out. There should be some option in your browser to select ISO8859-1 as the default. (Even better would've been for the page's author to include the appropriate META tag to specify the encoding to use, if he was going to stray from ASCII.)
BTW, the source doesn't have all the crud in it that FrontPage likes to add to its output, so I think it's kinda hard to blame Microsoft for this one. Blame AOL/Netscape for not knowing how to deal with 8-bit character sets.
Don't people have something better to do? (Score:1)
This is a total crock. Why is it that the marginal elements in the software industry always want to regulate, control, organize, or otherwise stick their fingers in a pie that they aren't baking?
This is a free market economy (or at least the closest facsimile to one on the planet.) The market will correct for abberrations in quality, customer support, or any other problem that these bureaucrats want to help resolve. There is very little to be gained from this proposal that can't already be handled with existing consumer protections, industry standards, and a little common sense.
Re:hurm interesting idea but not very likely (Score:1)
The more I think about this, the more I don't like it.
We need a discussion on how this might affect a Free Software effort like the Gimp.
But this isn't ISO 900x (Score:1)
And I would put the estimate of ISO900x software companies at 25%. Mostly companies who want to sell to governments, banks, telcos, aerospace, and militaries. But for companies selling games, not one.
the AntiCypher
An old idea, regurgitated again (Score:4)
This is another version of putting the IEEE in charge of licensing SW engineers, or forcing warantees on SW to be the same as for any other manufactured good, etc.
His idea of fining the publishers is not the best idea, since they will just force the developers to sign more legal BS and if they get fined pass it on to the developers or their insurers. I get hit with this occasionally, when a client requires professional liability insurance. I triple my rate to cover the costs, often $20000 to $50000 per year per project. Twice my clients didn't blink when I asked them to cover the full insurance costs.
I think if something like this ever happens, it will be like the Underwriters Laboratories seal of approval. The UL mark started as a voluntary thing in the electrical industry, because appliance makers often turned out badly designed products which electrocuted people, burned down houses, or just died after a weeks use. Soon retailers would only offer for sale UL marked appliances. But now UL approval is required by law before you can market or sell any electrical item in the US. The approval process ensured so much quality, that lawmakers were able to hold it up and point to it as a minimum standard.
So beware of this process. A few years ago I would have said it would be inevitable, but with the Free Software/Open Source movements, the point becomes a bit moot. Any software which remains closed or patented may soon find itself regulated by a 'voluntary' certification body.
I think he uses the word 'scary' a little too much in this OpEd piece. Its not that scary to anyone in the FS/OS world, in that you have to have some accountability at some point along the way. FS/OS people can move the accountability from place to place, if the original writer didn't do a good enough job, then the end user can take on the job to fix it, if it is truly important. Closed source products have to disclaim all accountability at all points, since the ability to fix a problem rests with whoever has access to the source.
Re:Free and Unfree Software and Regulations (Score:1)
The Sherman anti-trust act was created to protect the consumer against illegal monopolies. In actuality the law was used to have police break strikes and effectivly outlawed laybor unions. Also think about effect of telephone regulation that we are just now abolishing.
I personaly believe that such regulation is unconstitutional. We would be giving the govenment authority over which software can be published an which cannot. If you believe as I do that software is a form of expresion, like speech, then you must agree that this would violate the first ammendment.
Finaly, cost. A $1,000 or even a $10,000 regestration fee would not slow prodution of buggy MS software but immagine trying to release a new open source program with that kind of overhead. For those of you who don't belive that it would be this much, consider how much a pattent application costs. This regulation would require the governmen to beta test software.
Not more laws, just sensible ones. (Score:2)
The relation isn't quite the same as buying swampland property, it's more akin to "If you buy any property, and the house represented to be on that property is unlivable, unsafe, or just plain isn't even there, that's your fault for walking up to inspect the site." The problem with the standard EULA is that it is strictly that: standard.
Luckily, most EULA's do have a clause in them stating that if any clause of the EULA violates state or federal laws, that clause is considered null and void with the rest of the contract intact. -- Our job as people then is to make sure our governments have laws on the books allowing us to a reasonable time frame to return an unwanted product for our money back. The problem with this then becomes the illegal copying issue, which is all the more reason to take any software pirates you know and beat them severely about the head and shoulders with a Commodore Pet. (oo.. that's gotta hurt)
So while decent consumer laws aren't the entire answer, a regulatory body just won't work, for most of the reasons listed earlier in this thread:
- Small publishing companies would be put out of business too easily with arbitrary fines
- Large publishing companies would swallow the fines and continue on.
- It still provides no remedies to the consumer who got the crap software.
- A regulatory body is a money sink. Even if it's not actually out fining people, there's still the payroll of those on staff to take calls, and the internal bureaucracy of any governmental agency.
- People with a grudge would cost the regulatory body (and hence us) vast amounts of money on false complaints. (Admit it, even if MS put out something that did work as it was advertised, far-fetched as that may be, wouldn't you complain against them just because it was MS who made it?)
- Software advancement would slow as publishers became even more wary of "new" things than they are now; and
- Software prices and development time would increase dramatically.
KwilJust because it's my opinion doesn't make it better than yours.
It's better because it's the correct opinion.
Re:Unforeseen MS-HTML in links (Score:2)
Doubtless that's because you're a Prisoner of Bill. For the rest of us, it's garbeldy gook, because it's not legal HTML [perl.com]. If you fetch the raw page, and get a nice octal dump, you'll see what I mean.
My point was simply that I felt that when Slashdot points us at a site that requires a special setup to view (for example: you must register; or you must have a valid referring page; or you need Flash installed; or you must have tithed Lord Bill) that this merits special notification of this unpleasantry.
I assure you that I certainly did "check my facts" before posting. Did you?
--tom
Unforeseen MS-HTML in links (Score:4)
Perhaps in much the same way as /. warns about registration required when pointing at the New York Times, it might also be useful if you would include a warning when Microsoft is required for proper viewing of a page you link to.
Software Regulatory Body (Score:1)