Re: Compromised Linux box stories (Re: [SLUG] upgrading complicated installs)

[Mary Gardiner <mary@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, Jun 02, 2008, Peter Miller wrote:
> Will the parallel be: you get malpractice insurance, or you can have
> your future wages garnished forever if you get sued.  Doctors have to
> pay their malpractice insurance to have their pro-bono work covered.  I
> expect software folks will too.

If the analogy holds too closely, the inability of people to start their
careers in Free Software is the same: the insurance would only possible
to get if you happen to be trained and accredited in the approved manner
and could well depend on having prior supervised professional
experience. If a world that looks anything like the medical litigation
landscape happens in software, Free Software will look awfully
different, that's for sure, and it likely won't have the appeal of being
a good place to learn without a heavy cash investment.

I think I'm on the opposite side of the fence from most people here: if
the world was likely to demand that kind of quality assurance from the
industry, I suspect it would have already done so in a manner impossible
to ignore. I suppose a demonstration that that kind of quality is
achievable for a suitable price would change things.

-Mary