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« on: December 20, 2007, 05:14 PM »
hi,
I'm raising a new thread about software ethics.
I'm raising a broad-based discussion question.
The vendors of several popular organizers uses the same wordprocessor library, same scheduler library -
and used in different fashion in their organizers.
One thing i noticed was the sheer amount of bugs those libraries had and yet, the wordprocessor library vendor, and the scheduler library vendor managed to get away totally blameless - their customer's customers (i.e., the software vendors) get the blame instead.
many of the issues reported (by the end-users of these organizers) were attributed to bugs and defects in the (library), and no fault of the (organizer-vendor).
for the record, many years ago, I confronted the word-processor library vendor and walked away, losing a few thousand dollars., and same with the scheduler vendor.
why did I walk away and lose all the money?
the EULA on the Word-Processing Library states that the Word-processor library is without warranty and that it was without fitness for any purpose. any claim in court would be thrown out, and those vendors would tell me repeatedly that I would not get back my money at all. my emails are often ignored.
nearly all EULA found on software now have the above clauses.
today, I look at the software market and shudder. unless things change, either by law-enforcement (in the form of IT malpractice lawsuits) or increasing professional status of the IT industry, three things will happen:
a) people who write software will be tempted to sell "hypeware", "false promises" and "software full of bugs" to recover costs as quickly as possible,
b) it will become more and more difficult to earn a living selling software.
c) there will be another IT "black hole" where investments don't match the revenue coming in.
Questions:
- An average software developer makes approx US$120,000 per year. How many copies of US$29.95 organizers do you have to sell to support a development team?
- Why is that nobody has taken "class action" lawsuit against certain vendors?
- Why do people resign themselves to posting on this forum to complain... why not file an "IT malpractice" lawsuit instead?
Maybe the first thing to do, is regulate IT the same as being lawyers and doctors. Doctors are regulated by medical council or medical supervisory board. Lawyers have bar associations or law societies.
The very sad thing about software market is as every year pass by, I see more and more software created with false and misleading advertising. RAD means Rapid Application Decline, and QA is no longer followed.
Perhaps the only way to force higher standards is to start writing laws, to force IT vendors to honor their claims, and force punitive damages when they don't.