The future of independent purebasic developers under threat

[codewalker]

Hi to all,

The European Commission is proposing a law for extending consumer protection rules to software and held software producers liable in the European Union (EU) for the security and efficacy of their products.

It means that software writers are going to be forced to make maintenance and support agreements for every sale they make to meet the proposed garantee conditions by this new law.

But who as an independent one man software producer can afford all this maintenance and support ?

Gone are the days where software could be written in a garage by one or two guys . . . . ?

Follow this link to check it out

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/ ... 922,00.htm

Greetings
cw

[DoubleDutch]

Nobody could benefit from these laws apart from lawyers and sly customer making a quick buck claiming software is not fit for purpose.

[Trond]

I think that software vendors should definetely be responsible for selling software that actually works like it should. That should not mean they have to do support (other than confirming there's a problem) or maintenance. It should only mean that if the software has problems or causes data loss, etc.., the customer should be able to get his money back easily. In today's world it's common practice that you may buy stuff that doesn't work well and the vendor won't fix it, and won't give you your money back either. IMO that's not fair. If you're sold something that crashes and loses your data, say one in 100 times, you should be able to get your money back.
If your car crashed all by itself every 50th day (provided it's used twice a day) you'd be able to get some compensation. Why not with computer programs? Car vendors also repair serious errors for free, you don't have to purchase the latest model just because it turns out the brakes in the first car you bought had a serious error. With software you do.

Of course, if the software is free, you'd get nothing back.

[SFSxOI]

Welcome to the world of big content influence.

[blueznl]

It only means writing up carefully worded licenses. Putting all the risks with the customers

[srod]

It only means writing up carefully worded licenses. Putting all the risks with the customers

hehe, that's the way I read it as well!

[Trond]

It only means writing up carefully worded licenses. Putting all the risks with the customers

Licenses that violate the law aren't valid.

[PB]

> who as an independent one man software producer can afford all this

Easy: just charge $1000 for your app. Then you win in both ways: you don't
need to support people who don't pay, and those that do, make you rich.

Or do what the author of ImgBurn (CD burning app) does: don't put your
real name anywhere in the app or documentation, but use an alias. Works
for him.

[pdwyer]

It only means writing up carefully worded licenses. Putting all the risks with the customers

Licenses that violate the law aren't valid.

In contract law you can have exclusion clauses and to hold up in a court you will need to prove that the customer has not only agreed to it but understood it. These days people click agree and go through as a habbit and could actually mount a legal defence to say that they were no aware (it would be a bit shaky though).

A non software example is a carpark and the responsibility of the place to protect the car while in custody. On the back of the parking tickets there was a bit of text to say "we take no responsibility for damage to your car" but they lost the court battle because they had not proof that it was brought to the customers attention after a tree fell on the car. But, if the customer was shown to agree to the clause before purchase then the clause holds up in a court.

I think what you are thinking of is "A contract in breach of the law is invalid" this refers to a contract to commit fraud (a crime not a tort) or some other criminal activity. A contract to pay for a drug shipment is not valid.

If the EU courts make this lack of support a criminal offence then I guess everyone will be using exclusively microsoft and symantec products with a bangalore call center to back it up and it will server you all right!

added: how can you police where people pick up free software though? OR, we'll start getting web sites that sell software like this:

Single User License $99 ($199 for EU customers with 2 months support)

[Rescator]

A non software example is a carpark and the responsibility of the place to protect the car while in custody.

What? I though the whole point of a carpark is to make sure that the car is safer than it would be on the street?

how can you police where people pick up free software though? OR, we'll start getting web sites that sell software like this:

Single User License $99 ($199 for EU customers with 2 months support)

Or "Single User License $99 (w/o support)"

Then again as codewalker was worried about independents...
PureBasic and Fred is a bit of an unusual example, but the bottom line is that Fred is already doing this. Fixing bugs and stability issues, the fact that new features are added is bonus.

Most independents do things this way: "If I still have the source, and can reproduce the bug I'll fix it."

Good luck getting the same from commercial companies.
How many games or big software have had known bugs that thousands of users have pointed out, still unfixed (and no game update for years) and the product is still being sold...

I haven't checked the article for an expiration date though (I assume there is an x years clause).
If they adopt a "the more expensive the longer the post-sale support".

By post-sale I mean after they stop selling the product.
Microsoft has had a 10 year thing going there. Even after they stop selling Windows XP they'll still support it for years with fixes.

One interesting side effect of something like this is that there may be less product lock-in's. (locking users to your product due to in compatible/proprietary formats) if they start adopting open formats, people will be more likely to just change if they are unhappy instead of suing the company due to lock-in (such a law would let people sue if the company refuse to let them move their data from a "discontinued" software).

So I like the idea of this, what worries me though is how it's worded. So evil bastard may just sneak in some language that turns this into a placebo instead.

[Trond]

It only means writing up carefully worded licenses. Putting all the risks with the customers

Licenses that violate the law aren't valid.

In contract law you can have exclusion clauses and to hold up in a court you will need to prove that the customer has not only agreed to it but understood it. These days people click agree and go through as a habbit and could actually mount a legal defence to say that they were no aware (it would be a bit shaky though).

In Norway you can't do that, it's prohibited by law to give a customer worse rights than given by law. Making a customer agree to such a contract is illegal.

I think what you are thinking of is "A contract in breach of the law is invalid" this refers to a contract to commit fraud (a crime not a tort) or some other criminal activity. A contract to pay for a drug shipment is not valid.

In Norway it is prohibited by law to make consumers agree to contracts with exceptions that give them less right than they get by the consumer rights law. (This law does not apply to business purchases.)

[Tipperton]

If this passes, you'll get one of three obvious responses:

1. Carefully worded license agreements the make it clear the user of the program bears the entire risk of using it.

2. Software vendors will decide that the risks of selling their software within the EU are too great and so will quit selling to users within the EU.

3. EU prices for their software will be sky high to offset the risks.

No matter how you look at it nothing good can come from this.

[pdwyer]

What? I though the whole point of a carpark is to make sure that the car is safer than it would be on the street?

in large cities you are often not allowed to park on the street and a carpark is the only place to park. Or the streets can't hold the the number of cars parked so car parks take the over flow.

I don't think security is the main reason.

Either way, it was a precedent setting legal case in that most people thought the mere existance of an exclusion clause was binding but actually it was required to be agreed to before the contract was signed.

No idea about Norway. Guess they dont have enterprise bargaining or must have really strong unions

[Rescator]

Yeah well, there are some public parking lots. You know the kind, toss in a few coins and you can park for some hours, it's rare for those to be guarded or monitored in any way. They are basically the same as single spots found along the side of some streets.

But we also have parking houses with camera, some kind of security guard, or a leased security company that do some rounds once in a while, and maybe even a automatic locked gate where you have to use the ticket to enter/exit, etc. Although I've never seen such myself, I know there exist (not sure about Norway) these unusual stacked boxes where cars are elevated into by a automatic machine, I guess that is high security parking and I'm pretty sure those places have a insurance company agreement.

And I think there are some that are in between the two as far as security goes. So I guess your example was of a public street lot parking thingy. If I parked in such a place I'd know that I wasn't protected in any way. (other than my cars insurance against vandalism etc)

I guess the disclaimer falls ino the "stupid" category of "do not drink" labels on bleach etc. Just because that label is there, you KNOW somebody did that once. *laughs*

But back to the original topic, I'm cautiously optimistic.
The immediate effect I'm sure, would be bigger companies, as their EULAS wouldn't work. (most "serious" EULAS state that "these" are your rights unless local law says otherwise)

We'd for example see longer release cycles on some software apps and games (to get them more stable, and nuke as much bugs as possible),
or no change in release cycles, just... short games. *sigh*.

[utopiomania]

If I sell software and explain to people that it is sold 'As Is' and that it might very well not do what they
expect, thats probably end of discussion when it comes to laws like this.