Wednesday 27 January 2010

Programmers' Liability

One of today's news items concerned a number of errors in tax codes fllowing the introduction of new software.

We often hear of computer systems malfunctioning at great cost. I wonder if it might help if third parties were allowed to sue those who create the systems.

Those who produce commercial software could be treated in the same way.

I suggest  that both those who produce software for sale, and those who use it, should be liable for its malfunction. That would stimulate the production and use of open source software, where users can legally correct any errors they detect.

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