You would never buy an automobile or a refrigerator that offers as little protection and as great dependency as the software on which our information society is built. If we made trucks, pharmaceuticals and radios the way we engineer software, our economy would still be stuck in the early era of industrial development.

Customer Expectations

Manufacturers have been forced to disclose information about the quality and dangers of their products. The old buyer-beware attitude is out. Consumers now demand that sellers be accountable for how their products are used.

Accountability Avoidance

What did you just agree to? To find out, you have to scroll through at least 10 hard-to-read windows because you can't enlarge or print the text. Typically, you will find you have given consent to absolve the vendor from any responsibility whatsoever. The vendor has agreed only that "... software will substantially conform to the applicable documentation ..." (ha!) and that it "... makes no warranty or representation, either express or implied, with respect to the software, documentation, quality, performance, usability, condition, compatibility, security, accuracy, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose." I particularly relish the clause that states "... customer waives any claims even if the vendor has been advised of the possibility of damages ..."

What does that mean? For instance, by clicking Yes, you will have absolved the vendor of responsibility for known defects in security that would lead to a compromise of your confidential data. By clicking Yes, you will have agreed not to blame the vendor for a rare combination of commands that will wipe clear your entire disk.

Even the few, ephemeral commitments contained in these warranties are worthless. Consider this pledge: "What you accepted is that the software vendor will only have to cover either the purchase price paid or the costs of repairs [bug fixes] to the software package, but only if such fixes are available." But even that is void in case of your "misapplication," as judged in the sole discretion of the courts in the vendor's hometown.

In dollar terms, such remedies are meaningless. For instance, I have just completed a review of the time lost by a large financial firm from failures caused by off-the-shelf software. It added up to approximately 6.5 hours per month per person, or a total of $135 million per year. That's a very large multiple of the purchase price for the firm's software for one year.

The manufacturers of electrical devices -- motors, spark plugs and circuit boards -- provide generous warranties because their products are manufactured to defined specifications and quality standards. The software industry doesn't offer such warranties because its products are rushed to market after insufficient testing, in disregard of the pain the products may inflict on the buyers.

It's time the software industry joined the universal quest for greater product reliability and ended to shoddy software.

We users can't accept any more quack claims about capabilities and features for which the vendor assumes no responsibility. We must have performance warranties, test certification and assured performance levels to keep costs down and productivity up. We can't let a vendor ship operating systems with gaping holes that let infocriminals gain control of a business. We can't suffer applications that destroy data and wipe out ongoing work. We must not tolerate software so faulty that even the vendor's own experts can't install a peripheral device without crashing the system in a public demonstration.

My advice to buyers of off-the-shelf software is to rebel against contractual language that will place their careers at risk. Soon, negligence lawyers with experience gained from year 2000 lawsuits will turn their sights on organizations that have put up with software that's causing damage.

Please read the fine print. The verbiage you strike out may be the words that could hang you.