Let’s change the law. 1

[gregor weertman]

The matter I always miss in writings in relation to M$ is the poor performance of the products.
The amount of money they ask for their product is far to high given the quality.
When you ask a certain amount of money for a product you may expect the same in return.
I think firms like M$ should be accountable for the damage that is done by errors in there products.
When that would be the case now, M$ would sell outstanding products or was bankrupt.
I would put my money on the last option.

Let’s change the law.
A software firm is accountable for the damage that is done by errors in their products regardless there terms.
This of course considering the price of the products.

Gregor Gregor.Weertman@mailcity.com

 

[VerboseIT]

How about a requirement by law to fix bugs? The government is telling them how to create their product already, why not put a legal requirement to fix bugs when found?

I am no fan of M$, and I think they should have been defunct back when they were seriously stealing code in the early years. Now it is interesting to see them pay in a diffrent way. Software companies sueing them because M$ makes their product incompatible. Let us think about this. Earlier in the thread there was a comparison between this field and another field. Try this on... If your company makes headlights for Jeeps, and Chrysler switches from round to square headlights you would sue Chrysler to make them round again and the government would enforce this and tack on hefty fines for them making them square in the first place. Hmmmmmm...... I think M$ should be left to make their product as they see fit (just not stealing from others)... Go ahead.... lock out everyone leeching off of their software and then creating products that do the same job (although not as well). Pretty soon they would lock everyone out and M$ would make all the products for Windows. All the software vendors would have to go elsewhere. Enter Linux..... YEAH...... And the plethoria of software would be written for Linux and M$ realizing that their customers are going too.....(Or their subscribers if M$ gets their way).... Would open it back up ...but it would be too late. F**K M$ we are happy on Linux. Ok I better wake up now.......

 

[sleipnir214]

VerboseIT:

Other than in government contracts, where is the government telling anyone how to create products? Keeping in mind that any organization which contracts to have a custom application written for it has the right to say what the application will be.

And although I agree with your point, your anology about the headlights misses the mark completely. ______________________________________________________________________
Never forget that we are
made of the stuff of stars

 

[VerboseIT]

sleipnir214:

I agree on the government contracts issue. A contract is a contract, same as hiring programmers yourself. As far as my analogy, it is very broad. For example let us skip the current less known suites and go to one that everyone has heard about...
IE built into the OS and the hoopla over it. I think that relates. Or perhaps The states still litigating against M$ charge that the company now is commingling the code of the Windows Media Player with the Windows OS. They are trying to force a modular version of Windows.
In theory, a modular version of Windows would enable computer makers to choose whether to include M$ components or replace them with competitors' components, when selling PCs with a M$ OS. Those components could include browsers, media players and instant-messaging appz. Yes this is a good thing for opening competition and they are winning
law suites but it is telling them how to make their product and my case in point. Could you elaberate on how it misses the mark?

Thanks,

 

[sleipnir214]

What Microsoft needs to do, not just from a legal standpoint but also from a software engineering standpoint, is quit defining what is and is not an operating system based on their trying to increase their market share.

The way they're going, they are accumulating so much cruft in the OS no one need worry about Microsoft's acting monopolistically. Their OS line is going to implode under the weight of its own "features". ______________________________________________________________________
Never forget that we are
made of the stuff of stars

 

[VerboseIT]

I couldn't agree with you more. Microsoft stategy is great for short term, but self defeating in the long run. Good point.

 

[AIXSPadmin]

Microsoft's kernel is so bloated now by trying to be the OS for any and all devices. This is creating an OS that is unstable; and creating so much bloated source code (I heard and I don't know if it is true that MS source code for Windows was 50-60 million lines), that it is now almost but impossible to audit each line and to test for any defects in any plausible way.

All Microsoft is doing is trying to control and dominate the entire computing world by buying out and forcing out competition, not by the best method of having the best product as has been demonstrated with a multitude of products like: ford vs. chevy, tide vs. purex, michelen vs. goodyear, and on-and-on. Thousands of companies compete with rivals and they all thrive because they meet the needs of different consumers. Microsoft does not want competition because it has nothing on which it can compete in the marketplace and given an all things being equal, Bill Gates knows he would lose in every category and would cease to exist as a company. Therefore, they now try to control everything out of fear of competition.

 

[VerboseIT]

That is M$ from the beginning. Only thing that has changed is the file size and the number of undocumented features(i.e. bugs)