a passing anecdote....

we were given a sharp carousel microwave a few years ago. after a couple of weeks the lcd display started showing missing character elements, then garbage. phoned sharp and was told it was like a bad electricity supply. fine, took it in (under warranty) and the shop replaced the display.
another month later same story. sharp were a bit 'shirty' but i pointed out that i was a retired lawyer (ha!) and off it went again, under warranty.
repeat this a third time.
fourth time sharp said it was definitely our power supply and refused to fix it.
funnily enough i hadn't till then thought of checking on the net - when i did there was over 1m hits for defective display.
phoned up sharp and politely explained that if i was the only complainant then yes, it might be my problem. but 1m, it's there's.
was immediately sent gift voucher for new, much better model microwave....

defect is in the eye of the beholder, but if there's enough eyes.....

Defective means it won't work as it's supposed to in the setting it's designed for and everything else is working.

If you have 10,000 people who get broken axles on their cars, you could call that defective. You could also call it the drivers problem because they're using their sedan for off road dirt jumping. My minivan doesn't say "don't jump of dirt mounds" but if I did and thousands others did, Ford wouldn't call our axles defective.

Same with software: might not work for thousands of people but it could have nothing to do with the software. In the latest AMD GPU driver release they fixed an issue with the Doom 3 BFG engine that wasn't a driver issue, it was an engine issue. They did a work around so the engine would work as expected. Thousands had the issue but it was dealt with by the company who people complained to, not by the ones who created the issue.

Same with Vegas: unless you know it's a Vegas issue, there's more of a chance it could be something else. Vegas is one cog in the hundreds that make up your OS.

Plus, if you don't like something from someone, don't buy from them. If people didn't like Vegas 12 they're fools for buying 13.

Software is a purchase category that IS NOT a product or a service, although you can see how it has elements of both.

What software is- IS a super compressed container of intellectual property - or in simple terms the directions of how to do something with something. Now if you were buying intellectual property - there is no way on earth that it would ever be called defective - because all intellectual property has validity.

So we say software has bugs, has quirks, or more intelligently "unfinished" but never ever defective.

I thought we bought a Licence, that gave us the permission/right to USE the Software? In which case can we claim that a Licence is defective?

G

For example - digital juice has a similar wording in their warranty, but the PRODUCT is the disc itself, not what the disc contains.

I have some DJ software that just won't work in any of my PC's, but all DJ guarantees is the physical disc.

I'm enjoying all the answers here. :) My point basically is, there is NOTHING we can do if we buy defective software. Defect as discovered by 100 people using it, posting online they are all having the problem. Heck, I think TWO people finding the exact same problem points to a defective product whether it is defined as intellectual property or not.

I'm not paying a hand maiden to wash my feet once, I'm exchanging money for a THING, something they PRODUCED, a "Product" that doesn't work as designed. A failing product and there needs to be ways to be compensated for this.

Citing examples: I recently bought a lighting rig that included about 20 bulbs. When I unpacked, I discovered ONE of the bulbs was broken and unuseable. I did not get fully what I had paid for. I notified Amazon, asking if there was anyway I could get ONE simple replacement bulb instead of having to return everything just because of one bulb... they said no because of they way they are a package deal. BUT, they refunded 33% of my money for the set if I choose that. 33%!!! Heck yeah. Now, THAT is the way to deal with DEFECTIVE PRODUCT, NOT maybe 3 months from now send me a newer patch bulb that may or may not work when I install it.

If it is defective, fix it NOW, or refund the money or part of it

just ranting really. :)

And I love Vegas... but it is the ONLY software PRODUCT on my new PC that crashes, out of 190 things installed. It crashes when it was the only thing installed as well. I bought this PC for editing, so Vegas was the very first thing I tested on it. Crash! :D nice.

It crashes when it was the only thing installed as well.

Perhaps if you had installed an operating system, it would have run ;-)

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As others have said, you don't buy the software, you buy a license to use that software. The license isn't defective. If you read the license agreement you'll probably find that there are clauses stating that the software is not warranted to behave in any particular way, and that there is no recompense for any losses howsoever caused as a result of using the software.

- The only 'Product' is the physical data storage media/device
- The customers only buy the License to use Software
- The software is delivered "as is"

The above are essence of most computer programs' EULAs I have ever seen...

Piotr

>>>How do you define "defective product"?<<<

They have apple logo on them.

In Australia we are protected by significant consumer laws. These can not be altered by any other wording, agreement or otherwise between the consumer and manufacturer, producer, professional advisor, etc.

Software is indeed covered the same as a washing machine. If one purchases an app from iTunes that suggests it shows xrays of your hand, and it doesn't, iTunes must, and will, provide a refund.

The refund comes from the store that sold the product. If I purchased Vegas locally in Australia and it crashed all the time, I would be entitled to a complete refund AND compensation for loss of income due to the issues...
If I had purchased it from overseas these provisions do not apply...

We are very lucky to have protections like this.

So if you sell the license who is liable for the defective product?

How do you define "Defective"?

If a program feature works fine for thousands of users and only a few have a problem, then is it defective or is there possibly a problem in those users' PC's?

You guys must live in some fairy land. When I look up the definition of "product" it's "something that is made or grown to be sold or used, something that is the result of a process, someone or something that is produced or influenced by a particular environment or experience"

Software fits that definition quite nicely. You're confusing whether you own it or not.

Like I said, PROVE it's defective & not something else. If I sold software in the AU and you came to me demanding a refund because it's defective, I'd say "Test your hardware for malfunctions. Format with a fresh OS install, install the drivers/utilities I said you needed for the software, then install the software. If it doesn't work AFTER you've proven to me it's the software's fault, then I'll give you your $$ back". With a light bulb it's obvious (although no telling why it's broken. How do we know it wasn't broken because when you took it out of the box you dropped it, or you swapped a live bulb for a dead one to get $$ back?)

Everything has issues, even brand new stuff you buy in store. It happens. Things break down once they're created, it's the second law of thermodynamics.

If I was in the AU and knew of a Vegas user who tried to get their $$ back on "defective" Vegas software, I would purposely order an expensive video, even put $$ down, then when it's done demand my $$ back because it's a defective product. After all, anyone can define what's defective or not, right?

One of the things I'd hope to point out here is how "Software" slides around the need to also be functional. Heck, at this rate, they can sell us The Emperor's New Software and we have zero recourse.

Sounds like Australia is making logical sense. And, somehow, I bet their economy is not crashing over defective software returns. :)

From our consumer commission (ACCC):

A product or good has a major problem when:
it has a problem that would have stopped someone from buying it if they’d known about it
it is unsafe
not fit for the purpose of which it was sold
it is significantly different from the sample or description
it doesn’t do what the business said it would, or what you asked for and can’t easily be fixed

So our lawmakers have essentially defined defective for us.

HP got a 3 million fine for misleading customers on the above... They also advised customers that after the manufacturers warranty had expired, they had no leg to stand on, which is incorrect in Australia. Products are basically covered for a reasonable amount of time by the Act, for instance the average person would expect an expensive fridge to last longer than a $20 toaster.

It is interesting that most tech products have a sticker on the box "warranty info for Australia has been updated yada yada yada you have guarantees that cannot be excluded etc..."

If "The Emperor's New Software" listed in its features that it was able to brainwash minions by the millions, however it failed to do so, that would be considered defective by the act, because of the last 2 points above.

On the down side, people over here complain so much about the cost of software and tech compared to the US.For instance, games on Amazon for around $20 USD, often sell for $90 AUD or $85 USD.

If software has bugs, does that make it defective? Is software in some class of its own where it "mostly"/percentage is non-defective? At what point does s/w becomes non-defective?

Fairyland? Interesting.....

Grazie

This definitely gets into interesting philosophical territory.

If ownership is solely a "license" of intellectual property, must the "intellect" behind the property be accurate? In the US, at least from recent SCOTUS decisions, lying is a protected form of free speech. If I license a piece of music, and then discover a wrong note in it (in my opinion) am I entitled to a refund?

If I own a "product" that depends upon other "products" to function properly, and two "products" don't work together, which one is at fault? If I buy a pre-configured computer that won't run a particular software, can I go after the computer manufacturer?

people forget that some of us are old enough to remember when software was tested first, then delivered without bugs. YES, it DID happen. Now, everyone has been subjugated to the BETA RELEASED AS READY slow process over the years and think that is just how it goes. And it is, because things move so fast, the competition will step in before you release something that was fully tested.

They didn't used to release BUG FIXES, the released UPDATES with ENHANCEMENTS and new features.

Brave New World this is

"Brand new world" - note the price of oil has risen!

In the software world, there are many influences on the cost of doing business. One of them is history, because when software went thru beta tests and more tests before release- many individuals and companies lost their shirt. It was a very costly lesson to those who wanted to remain afloat.
Software today struggles to live in a growing complexity of market interfaces - the sheer variety of OS environments is staggering compared to the beginning years ago.
The expectation for more features and thus more complexity built-in is now very high compared to the beginning.
The universe of open source thinking has also spawned a play as you go mentality about the development cycle. Now, there is really little distinguish open-source from privately held software development resources and the integration into user environments.

How do you define a "bug"?

If software can't universally adapt to an near-infinite variety of hardware configurations, is that a bug? If it can't coexist with another software (even one that hasn't been developed yet) is that a bug? If it can be exploited by another software, is that a bug?

I'm a pretty old guy and using those criteria, I can't even remember an OS that was delivered bug-free.

Edit: My point is that given (sometimes ridiculous) consumer expectations, variety of available hardware, ever changing OS updates, I'm very glad I'm not in software development. Sure, I want my software to work, but I'm overwhelmed thinking about what it takes to make that happen today.

some of us are old enough to remember when software was tested first, then delivered without bugs

Perhaps this is why Acid 8 has been so long in the pipeline, Sony are using the old Sonic Foundry approach!!