I don't know about IBM or EDS, but in both of those cases, only a portion of ATC has failed, and there were backup plans in place to deal with such failures. I do not believe there has been a test case here, as yet. You can bet your ass they'd get sued if two planes collided during an outage and the collision was attributed in part to the failure of their system(s). As to Jepessen, you obviously don't remember the lawsuit filed over the 737 crash that took out Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. Jepessen was sued over that crash, even though their charts were within specifications and correct according to the available definitions of correct. It is rare that a Jepessen chart error leads to a crash, but it is almost uheard of for them to not get sued in the event of a crash that might possibly be blamed on a chart error. Owen Chance Whaley wrote:
Funny..
I don't remember IBM or EDS being sued on the times when ATC has failed. Jeppeson hasn't been sued for issuing incorrect maps either. Software programmers arent sued when monitoring machines in hospitals fail. Oh that's right, because there are neat things called "Limits of Liability", "Gross Negligence", and "Malicious Intent".
Look up the work indemnity. There is a reason why it is in most boilerplate. In the mean time, I would suggest that people who have no concept of the legal system refrain from comment about any of this. The concept of this entire thread is nothing more than mental masturbation.
.chance
-----Original Message----- From: owner-nanog@merit.edu [mailto:owner-nanog@merit.edu]On Behalf Of Gary E. Miller Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2001 3:57 PM To: Joseph T. Klein Cc: nanog@nanog.org Subject: Re: product liability (was 'we should all be uncomfortable with the extent to which luck..')
Yo Joseph!
On Wed, 25 Jul 2001, Joseph T. Klein wrote:
Since software, in theory, can't cause physical danger, I suspect the shrink wrap license makes Microsoft immune to any liability.
ROTFL! What about the WinNT powered flight control systems from Avidyne? NT blue screens when you are in the clouds and death is usually shortly follow. Shrink wrap license or not, the first time this happens expect M$ to show up in court.
RGDS GARY -------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- Gary E. Miller Rellim 20340 Empire Ave, Suite E-3, Bend, OR 97701 gem@rellim.com Tel:+1(541)382-8588 Fax: +1(541)382-8676
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