On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Rick Welykochy wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Grant Bayley wrote:
>
> > >From Wired:
> > http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,45692,00.html
> [SNIP]
> > But that may be changing. Federal rules that will make it obligatory for
> > specific sectors to download virus patches are already here, and more are
> > coming.
>
> Let me see now ...
>
> 1. Ford Motor Co. produces a car with a defect. The defect turns out
> be a possible source of injury. The result: Ford is *legally liable*
> to recall and fix said vehicles.
>
> 2. Johnson & Johnson produce defective silicon breast implants. Even
> though J&J rigorously defends itself against a class action, it
> is found guilty of its breach of care to its customers and pays
> out $100's of millions in damages.
[snip]
> And Microsoft is home-free, sitting high on its proverbial
> corporate backside, stuffed with $BILLIONS of ill-gained profits,
> scraped out of consumer and corporate purses with narry a skerrick
> of responsibility for the crappe product it is selling.
I find this comparison inaccurate and quite distasteful.
While Microsoft has undoubtedly caused much frustration and cost to
individual and businesses affected by their shoddy software, this
should not be compared with companies who have caused such a degree of
personal suffering and loss of life. To do so is disrespectful to the
victims and makes a caricature of your argument.
Addressing your argument, the difference between the above companies is
that someone has actually sued them. To date nobody (to my limited
knowledge) has bothered to even try to do the same for Microsoft.
-d
-- | Damien Miller <djm@mindrot.org> \ ``E-mail attachments are the poor man's | http://www.mindrot.org / distributed filesystem'' - Dan Geer
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