Re: [Fsfe-uk] Cheats!

[Chris Croughton]

On Mon, Jan 30, 2006 at 06:52:41PM +0000, Ian Lynch wrote:
> On Mon, 2006-01-30 at 18:29 +0000, Chris Croughton wrote:
> 
> > Well, if it's in a shop you can take it back and complain (especially if
> > you have paid for it, even if all you really paid for was the
> > packaging), if you download it there's no one to sue.
> 
> Ever tried complaining to the person you bought software from that it
> had a bug in it? Ever tried suing a software company eg MS because their
> product wasn't fit for purpose?

Did I say anything about suing a software company?  Try a /shop/ and
"not fit for purpose", MS are outside the jurisdiction of British law
but PC World aren't.

At the very least you can get your money back, try getting the money
back from having done a 5 hour download over a PSTN line of something
which turned out to be unusable.

> Talk of suing is in practice marketing rhetoric. I know of know
> successful lawsuit against a shrink wrapped software supplier of any
> real size so its not a practical possibility. Its useful for software
> suppliers to give the perception that you might be able to sue them ;-)
> Surely we should be dispelling this myth, not perpetuating it.

No, we should be campaigning for software suppliers to be subject to the
law, like any other suppliers and manufacturers.  If it's free then you
take your chances, if you pay money for it then you should at least be
entitled to that money back if it doesn't work as advertised.

Which is one reason why most people won't trust free software, there is
no comeback if it doesn't work (in fact it comes with big disclamers
about how no one is responsible if it trashes your machine).

Chris C