Unsupported Software

Jerome Fine replies: [Jay, if you feel that these software questions are too off-topic, kill the post.] As an author, perhaps you can answer the following question in respect of IP? Suppose that you have sold a license for a specific software program which has some bugs and you offer a warranty. Do you feel that you have any obligation to fix the bugs or is it easier to just allow the user to return the software and license and refund the license fees? What about after the warranty period has expired? Do you rely on the letter of the law and refuse to either refund or fix the software program? Also, what do you think about a company who knows about the software bugs and continues to sell the software program even though that company is able to obtain free support from hobby users to fix the bugs, i.e. in return for allowing a hobby user to use the software program without payment, the bugs will be fixed without charge? Note that these questions are specifically with regard to a specific legacy software program that was released in 1985, although there is a more recent version that is now a bit less than 10 years old. However, even those current bugs in that software program are mostly (probably all) from a previous version that was released 1992 which means that they are at least 15 years old and one of the worst bugs was already present in the version released in 1980. However, since the last released version probably functions extremely well over 99% of the time, it seems to me that another version is, at present, highly unlikely. I am not sure if the best description is unsupported or abandoned. Certainly I agree that the lack of support is probably reasonable considering that the company in question probably does not have the expertise to fix the software program nor is the current revenue from the sales sufficient to support any staff. But since it is possible to obtain free support from hobby users who still enjoy using the software program, I don't understand why the company continues to refuse what seems like a win / win situation? I think that I should distinguish between: (a) Software programs which are pure entertainment - i.e. mostly games - which can't cause any harm to anyone other than perhaps the frustration of a game which has problems or does not work correctly for which any software bugs can, in most cases, be actually considered to be a feature of the game (b) Software programs (including and especially operating systems) which can and not infrequently cause serious problems during operation to both the users of the software programs and to the individuals and companies who are being served by the users Since any problems in (b) can be, and in the past on more than a few situations actually been, the cause of death, I consider there to be a complete difference between how serious (a) might be and how serious (b) actually is. Since I don't consider (a) to be an actual problem, ALL of the comments which follow are with respect to (b). Since none of us in classiccmp are going to have a major impact on the current IP laws, what I would appreciate are some comments on the above situation along with an opinion on the following aspects. After reading many opinions and observing the behaviour of many companies who produce software programs over the last 47 years, I think that I can summarize, obviously ONLY from my still limited viewpoint, as follows: (i) Companies who purposely release software with known bugs and care very little about fixing any bugs except when there are serious financial problems. (ii) Companies who take as much care as might seem reasonable, but still have no effective methods of dealing with problems when they arise. (iii) Companies who have quality as their highest priority and who fix any software bugs within a reasonable time period and provide the fixes to their end users as soon as possible. (iv) Companies who abandon their end users when any given software programs are no longer profitable and refuse to consider releasing the source code even when there are still known bugs to be corrected. (v) Companies who release the source code for software programs (especially after the company no longer provides any support or after no additional releases will be made) to at least the hobby community and in some case make the source code freely available, although without any additional support. It seems probable from everything that I am aware of that the company is ignoring hobby users who don't have a license to use the software program. The only result of attempting to resolve the situation would probably be a lot of effort to stop the hobby users and no revenue in return when that is accomplished - since the hobby users will just quit. With regard to commercial users who use the software program without a license, many are not even aware that they need the license any longer with their current hardware / software. In the US and Canada, I have found that most try to comply, although I know of one case many years ago when the company demanded a serial number before the license would be issued. The end user told the company to send the invoice for the license since the required serial number was inside the hardware (on the CPU) and the end user refused to open the cabinet. The company eventually did send the invoice and was paid without a serial number being provided. Note that I will not provide the specific name of the company since I am discussing issues as opposed to a specific example. Probably anyone who knows what I do (and did for a living) knows exactly what I am discussing and which company. I think this discussion should be limited to ONE response per person. I am curious as to what other people think is a reasonable approach. I know of one individual who probably feels that IP rights trump everything and that no bug ever needs to be fixed. Like selling a car with a defective gas tank. I will only reply to any specific questions off-list. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.