is it really that unreasonable when you compare this treatment to any
other physical product e.g. a car? it is only the lack of physicality
that makes software differ from other products.
when ford sold the pinto with the 'exploding' gas tank, it just paid
money out to settle claims after many people were burned to death.
although i don't believe there is a precedent for it, possibly until
now, many software companies have been doing the same thing: selling
crap products that in essence 'explode' and hemorrhage valuable personal
data to script kiddies, etc.
perhaps the threat of a lawsuit will encourage software development
houses to turn out less shite products, in which case the consumer wins.
one way to look at the explosion of software development in the past
30-40 years is that it is an industry lacking sufficient regulation and
thus a very lucrative area to do business. because there is no
regulation you can get some random idiot in whatever country to write
your code and there are no repercussions if the code blows up after you
sell it someone else, you cannot be held liable for using second-rate
labor to build your product.
