European Union Considering Software Value Legislation

This is a great follow-up to my last post. It seems that the European Union is considering legislation to require software publishers to be responsible for their code. OMG!! What a unique concept!

Anyone care to guess which international software houses are becoming very upset? It'll be interesting to see the way these folks spin their righteous indignation to this--obviously unfair--proposed legislation.

Let me think. How much do you suppose your company has spent over the years in cleaning up sloppy code on the part of software publishers? What was your ROI on all that effort? How much of the real work of your enterprise was set aside during those reactive emergency fix-fests? At what point in the history of product value did we all decide that software and operating systems do not have to deliver quality workmanship (or work-womanship)?

I'm sure we all agree that our well-funded legislators in D.C. will never produce such a consumer-friendly act--the technology product lobbyists who apparently make national policy would never permit it. So, how do we go about putting a stop to this very expensive sharp practice? It's actually quite easy (But few companies have the courage to follow up.)

Vote with you wallet. Start, today, keeping track of your costs--real or imagined--relating to repairing products containing defective or insecure code. Next time you make a volume purchase--or negotiate a support/maintenance agreement--explain (very gently) to the re-seller how you expect compensation for these hidden costs. Would you actually have the commitment to do this? Would you be courageous enough to drop this provider in favor of a competitor who actually produces a quality product and is willing to work with you on price? Probably not. If that's the case, don't complain when you pay out enormous sums of scarce resources on defective products.

How would you handle a new automobile full of defects? (Can you spell Lemon Law?) How about a poorly built home? A passenger aircraft with defective parts? A poorly designed and maintained highway bridge? Get my point? Are you the customer--or the clueless cash cow? You decide--it's your money after all.