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It's aboutr reasonable durability

Most jurisictions evolve legally battled-out stnadrads regarding product durability that exist apart from manufacturer claims or manufacturer warranties. Thes estandards tend to vary depending on the product.

In Canada for example there is a legal presumptiom of reasonable durability for products. Fridges for example can be expected to last at least 20 years. If a frdige fails in year 18, 10% of the purchase price would be owing, more or less.

I recently settled a hard disc failure claim with a drive that was out of store warranty using this principle. I got about $140 for a 40 meg drive that was more than 2 years old. The maker defaulted on its replacement warranty but paid cash based in the likely use left in a working drive.

This is why one fridge maker a few years ago ran seemingly bold ads offering to replace fridges allowing for age up to say 20 years. In reality that is more or less the legal obligation, so they were merely stating the obvious and trying to cash in on their minimum real obligation!

That is why in fact car warranties have gotten so long--the makers may as well offer a long warranty because the courts will enforce such a term if the owner sues in many cases; generally such terms of durability are argued out in time in the courts over years and are the result of legal battles waged over time.

We have not seen the final definition of what courts will hold software makers to, but it is reasonable that the durability limit cannot legally be set arbitrarily by software makers if they purposefully break software.

Regulators: Be on your toes here. Software doesn't rust and should re renstallable as sold and updated to the point where last updated, perpetually. The maker has every right to drop a product, but not in all fairness to extinct its use artificially my making it non-reinstallable in practice.

Imagine if your fridge could not be powered on 4 years from now because it "crashed" and update circuit board code for was then unavailable. The fridge maker would be sued blind in a flash.

Posted by: KeithRisler   Posted on: 01/09/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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