Langa Letter: Enough Already: Microsoft Must Change in Information Week, and the commentaries by DennisKennedy.blog and Ernie the Attorney.

This covers the general issue of liability for software developers; Microsoft is just a symptom that makes the current situation unacceptable. And the idea of a global approach putting some scrutiny into the user’s behaviour, and some accountability on the software developer’s shoulders sounds fine to me. What about ISPs then? Maybe that would be the wind change that would motivate the cable operators to adopt a common carrier attitude, which would not be a bad thing either.

I like the broken car analogy, I like even more the implied fact that the Internet is a common space and a public resource not unlike roads and other public networks.

I don’t like the fact that this reasoning would probably give software companies the best reasons to built-in far reaching registration mechanisms, mandatory TCPA, software that calls home to chat for a while and other niceties.

The article also touches on forced obsolescence of software. That’s an interesting issue all to itself. I hope I get a chance to work on that issue some day.