ekgermann@cctec.com ("Eric Germann") writes:
Not to sound to pro-MS, but if they are going to sue, they should be able to sue ALL software makers. And what does that do to open source? Apache, MySQL, OpenSSH, etc have all had their problems. ...
Don't forget BIND, we've had our problems as well. Our license says: /* * [Portions] Copyright (c) xxxx-yyyy by Internet Software Consortium. * * Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. * * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND INTERNET SOFTWARE CONSORTIUM DISCLAIMS * ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES * OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL INTERNET SOFTWARE * CONSORTIUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL * DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR * PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS * ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS * SOFTWARE. */ I believe that Apache and the others you mention do the same. Disclaiming fitness for use, and requiring that the maker be held harmless, only works when the software is fee-free. Microsoft can get you to click "Accept" as often as they want and keep records of the fact that you clicked it, but in every state I know about, fitness for use is implied by the presence of fee and cannot be disclaimed even by explicit agreement from the end user. B2B considerations are different -- I'm talking about consumer rights not overall business liability. In any case, all of these makers (including Microsoft) seem to make a very good faith effort to get patches out when vulnerabilities are uncovered. I wish we could have put time bombs in older BINDs to force folks to upgrade, but that brings more problems than it takes away, so a lot of folks run old broken software even though our web page tells them not to. Note: IANAL. -- Paul Vixie