Defective product? Or new innovation?

If it's green, it's biology, If it stinks, it's chemistry, If it has numbers it's math, If it doesn't work, it's technology
- Unknown

From Ars Technica and PRNewsWire..


The Committee to Fight Microsoft ("CTFM"), the first civil rights and consumer action organization in cyberspace, will hold a San Francisco news conference Tuesday, August 9th to announce that it has begun a campaign to block Microsoft Corporation fromreleasing Windows Vista to the general public unless and until Microsoft offers a general and unconditional warranty to purchasers that the program
does not include "bad code."
The Washington, DC-based CTFM celebrates its tenth anniversary this year.
"Bill Gates sells the public defective products," says CTFM Executive Director Andy Martin, "And then expects us to spend years being his guinea pigs, while he corrects the myriad of defects and vulnerabilities in his defective code. This is mass consumer fraud. It is unacceptable corporate behavior. Over four (4) years after Windows XP was released I still receive regular 'updates' and 'bug fixes,' which reflect a product that was originally scandalously defective.
"Windows 95 was a disaster; it took three years to correct the major deficiencies. But the 95 fix, Windows 98, only created new vulnerabilities, and required yet another round of fixes for Windows 98. On and on it goes. No other company in America gets away with selling defective products and then expecting its customers to wait years for proper product operability.
"When computers were a tool for techies, bad code may have been understandable. Today computers are a mass consumer product. The idea that hundreds of millions of people should have to have a similar 'XP' as users of Windows XP is unacceptable.
"Two other unacceptable scams that Microsoft has used over and over again are to encourage people to 'upgrade' unsuitable old computers, and to
encourage manufacturers to sell underpowered computers. XP was authorized for 128 RAM, which was clearly inadequate. Who would buy an inadequate TV set? Or an inadequate stove, that didn't get warm enough? Or an inadequate refrigerator that didn't get cold enough? No one. Why should someone buy or 'upgrade' an inadequate computer on Bill Gates' say-so? The Committee to Fight Microsoft is launching a legal action effort to bar such practice, in advance, for Windows Vista. Bill Gates, you are on notice."

Adjunct professor of law Andy Martin created the legal theories that led to litigation by state attorneys general against Microsoft. He founded the CTFM during the second round of federal litigation against Microsoft, and was an opponent of the original 1994 settlement.

...imagine that! A consumer movement to demand, of all things a warranty?! Why... this is (in my best blustering FoxNews® voice) a shining example of the travesty of frivolous lawsuits!

I ask, what is so wrong about demanding that a product work? If your DVD player needed to be reset every now and then because it locks up when you hit the menu button, we call that a defective product. But if your DVD player is a PC, well, that's just a fact of life...

Consumer advocates should be on Microsoft like white on rice... the end users need to stop paying for Windows patches with cool names like 'Vista', or 'Windows98'.

And have you heard anything about Vista, like the system requirements? 512MB RAM minimum... I tell you, it makes the most loyal Wintel fan reach for a Apple.

Having said that, I think my next PC is going to be a Mac Mini...