[SystemSafety] Qualifying SW as "proven in use" [Measuring Software]

[Martyn Thomas]

On 26/06/2013 01:09, Steve Tockey wrote:
> In fact, I would even advocate a removal of the liability waiver on
> software licenses. Let programmers who write code that fails be liable for
> the damage that their defects caused. Then, and probably only then, will
> we see proper professionalism applied to software development. It's
> clearly (to me, at least) not an issue of software not being able to be
> built in a solid, reliable way, it's simply that the practitioners are too
> used to complete immunity from their sloppiness.


At a company level, this makes good sense (see Ross Anderson's work on
Security Economics). Imposing  liability for consequential damage on
Individual programmers is less likely to be helpful, in my opinion.

There is draft legislation in the UK to clarify that exclusion clauses
in EULAs and other consumer contracts have to be fair, in the context of
the reasonable expectations of quality for software and other digital
content. It may make it easier to recover damages for consequential
losses - if consumers get together to afford to mount a legal challenge
to a supplier.

Martyn