Why is software so bad? We legally exempt software companies from any accountability for bad software they write, so they have no incentive to write better software.
Users, not software companies, pay the price for bad software.

Let's dig deeper than the typical "software sucks" banalities of
the Ribbon in Office 2007, nagging "are you sure?" dialog boxes from
Vista, and brain-melting error messages from just about every software application
out there. Dig down to the endless patching and the constant battle to plug
holes developers leave in their software. Dig down through the End User License
Agreements that let vendors off the hook for everything imaginable. Dig down
through your annoyance at paying real money for software that should still be
in alpha testing.

Dig deep enough and you find that the U.S. Government exempted the software
industry from liability for, well, just about everything. The software companies
you buy from, according to our government, are free to sell us any pile of putrid
programming and not only can we not sue them, we can't get our money back.

Thanks, Government.

30,000 and counting. That's the number of known software vulnerabilities according
to a security expert friend (he's the CTO of a network vulnerability testing
company, so he keeps up with those details). Lousy programmers and "ship
it fast" software companies can't be touched, because in 1997 the Clinton
White House said in a paper called "A Framework for Global Electronic Commerce"
that "Innovation, expanded services, broader participation, and lower prices
will result in a market-driven arena, not in an environment that operates as
a regulated industry" (pg 137 in Geekonomics, details below).

In other words, the White House told the software business they can do whatever
they want. In fact, the report added, "Existing laws and regulations that
may hinder electronic commerce should be reviewed and revised or eliminated
to reflect the needs of the new electronic age" (Geekonomics,
pg 138).

Most of us don't work on huge systems of interest to the White House. For us,
the software business has the EULA, or End Use License Agreement. Legally, these
are called "adhesion contracts" because the terms stick: buyers have
no room for negotiation. Take it or leave it, period. Worse, software isn't
sold but "licensed" meaning software companies restrict our rights
even further. The courts have deferred to the software companies in almost every
single case when users tried to sue to attach liability to bad software.

The one case where the government successfully sided with users, or in this
case victims, was against Multidata Systems International after the software
controlling their radiation therapy medical devices caused several deaths. The

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