BBC Commentator Goes After Software Licensing 453
An anonymous reader writes "Bill Thompson, a regular commentator on the BBC World Service programme Go Digital, criticizes current software licenses (including the GPL) for giving developers 'freedom from responsibility which would be considered wholly unacceptable in almost any other sphere of activity, public or private'." From the article: "A friend of mine is a children's writer. When she writes a non-fiction book she is typically asked to sign a contract that indemnifies the publisher against legal costs resulting from errors of fact in the book. If she was to suggest a school experiment that involved drinking sulphuric acid, because she'd confused it with acetic, then she'd be in big trouble. Yet I can't do anything when a company produces software that exposes my online banking details to any script kiddie with time to spare, because I've agreed a license that removes such liability. "
agreed (Score:4, Funny)
Bad analogy (Score:2, Insightful)
Software User is to Developer
Re:Bad analogy (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, he didn't use an analogy at all, since author is to author isn't an analogy. He merely brought up the indemnification of the publisher to illustrate that in fields other than software authors can be held accountable for what they write and publishers do not wish to be the "deep pockets" target of the accountability.
And software has publishers too.
KFG
Re:Bad analogy (Score:2)
Re:Bad analogy (Score:3, Interesting)
"If Apple turned round to nano users and pointed to a shrinkwrap "licence" on the high-design packaging that exempted it from the provisions of consumer protection law it would never get away with such a blatant disregard for its customers' rights."
But, if I go to a pawn shop and buy refurbished goods, which are sold "as is" then I have accepted more responsibility at the expense of supplier/creator liability.
Likewise, with free software, you ac
Re:Bad analogy (Score:3, Interesting)
So what about software that comes without source? I think the greater point the author is trying to bring up is that even for non-free software, like say IE, how are companies held liable for releasing software with security holes? Most EULAs make you accept the software as is and doesn't let you sue the com
S.W. is not a complete product (Score:4, Interesting)
Most software is either released inside a complete product, and the product liabilty is left intact. Or it is software inteded to be used with other software, and with the original programmers usually not being the system integraters, going back to a single person to be responsible is no longer easy or practical.
About time (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:About time (Score:2)
I guess noone in the software industry actually cares about the customer.
Re:About time (Score:2)
I am not so certain you can't sue them. Is it their fault that some kiddy with too much time on his hands wrote yet another worm? Have they been negligent in developing unsafe software?
If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you have reason to go to court in most Western countries. Consumer protection really goes that far and law trumps contract and overrules the EULA. The reason nobody doe
Re:About time (Score:2)
Yeah... (Score:3, Insightful)
malpractice caps do NOT decrease premiums (Score:5, Insightful)
Now let's get back on topic. It's wrong for people to make excuses for bugs in code which expose my personal information to hackers, stalkers and marketers. I'd just as soon see the industry grind to a halt until they find a way to nip these miscreants in the bud. And no, I can't opt out of this dangerous system unless I stop driving (so much for being able to get food), close my bank account (yeah, hide my money under my bed so a thief has a reason to physically rob me and then kill my whole family to get rid of witnesses), declare myself dead (to retire my SSN - whoops, that's illegal, welcome to Club Fed! - or at least, welcome to joblessness) and practically move out of the country (well, actually that's a good idea if Canada is my destination).
Thanks to stupid programmers there's absolutely no way anyone can protect themselves from identity thieves. The only reason why someone hasn't hijacked you is that they don't care to.
Now please, come back after you find yourself having to fight for years to fix your credit after a hacker stole your personal information off Lexis-Nexis and then tell me they shouldn't stop the digital train for some major overhauls. Until you're a victim of the gaping flaws in the digital fortress you really don't understand the sharpness of that sword of Damocles that is swinging back and forth over your head.
Re:malpractice caps do NOT decrease premiums (Score:3, Insightful)
And that's exactly what would happen. Anyone doing any sort of business electronically will cease to do so.
There is no way for software to be written so that it's absolutely safe from people who are determined to break it. Depending on your paranoia level, you can believe (or be reassured by the notion) that certain 3-letter gov't agencies can decrypt any secure transmission you might make over the w
Re:malpractice caps do NOT decrease premiums (Score:3, Informative)
It's wrong for people to make excuses for bugs in code which expose my personal information to hackers, stalkers and marketers.
Bite me. Programmers don't control the schedule. They also don't decide when to ship, or to delay bugfixes for browser exploits for months. That's all up to managers - they control the schedule and the priorities are.
Re:malpractice caps do NOT decrease premiums (Score:3, Insightful)
First of, the majorty of successful identity theft cases out there have been proven to be the result of social engineering. Meaning, there were no bugs and there were no clever hackers exploting the computer systems. Instead, there were con-men tricking people into giving them information, there were theives sifting through the trash of some careless individual that threw out personal inf
Re:malpractice caps do NOT decrease premiums (Score:3, Interesting)
Yeah, and lets do the same for other products like houses. Lets not allow the sale of houses until they are secure.
With every product, you take risk. The trick is figuring out where the risk/cost sweet spot is. Obviously, Medical/Financial data needs to have stiffer restrictions than say, an online recipie book. This kind of logic is what leads to things like banks being more secure than houses.
Re:malpractice caps do NOT decrease premiums (Score:4, Insightful)
and again
I'd just as soon see the industry grind to a halt
So, you'd like to see everyone just stop until it is completely safe, but you can't see how it is you could live without the systems that are in place. By the industry grinding to a halt, you mean your just going to stay home and eat your scrambled eggs until the world is without risk. Until your fluffy little world is just right to you.
Well, the world ain't perfect and you do have choice. And people should be free to assume whatever level of responsibility they feel comfortable with as long as there is no fraud. Doctors should be able to make patients sign legally enforceable waivers of complete responsibility from even claims of malpractice. And so too should manufacturers of software and hardware. If that car manufacturer want to make you sign a contract that says that their cars may explode upon key insertion and they are not liable for damages beyond the cost of the car, then that should be the way it is. Then let some decide to indemnify and other not and see if the price difference is worth it to customers.
Perfection costs time and money and is most often illusory, so to mandate it is a fools errand.
Hold service vendors responsible! (Score:3, Informative)
Let's say you put your money in a bank. The bank, in turn, puts your money in a safe. It just so happens that the safe has a subtle flaw in the door hinge that makes it vulnerable to robbers; neither the safe manufacturer nor the bank knows about this vulnerability. So when the bank is robbed, who is to blame for the loss of your money? The bank? The robber? The safe manu
Re:About time (Score:3, Funny)
Re:About time (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't like it - write up a new license claiming responsibility for whatever it is your software may do. Write whatever software you want. Users will possibly flock to you just for the peace of mind they would get (or is it piece of mind?
Of course, so will the lawyers, but hey, it was your choice (as a developer) to release software under those conditions anyway.
GPL (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Parially, yes (Score:5, Insightful)
If you as a company, invest tens of millions into a rollout of a new software product ( be it a new version of Windows, or a new Linux Kernel), without
Take windows for example. If you lose $500,000 in a day because some critical windows server crashed from a certain DDOS attack, should Microsoft be responsible? Or should you be responsible, because you should have known from years of examples that Windows is very vulnerabile to those kinds of attacks, and you should either have an external protection mechanism in place, or not use the software? I think the latter. Then again, I am not the person who thinks "sue" when I slip on icy stairs in the winter and break my neck either. I think "maybe I should have bought better gooddamned shoes for walking around in the winter". The other commentors are right, there is not enough responsibility in the world today. Grow a backbone and stop sueing everyone.
Re:Parially, yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Ya, more or less (Score:5, Interesting)
So by choosing to run software cheaply and quickly developed in random environments, you choose to accept teh fact bugs may occur.
To me, demanding that commoddity software on commoddity hardware run without bugs is like demanding that an automobile on the public streets never get in to an accident, even one caused by driver error, unforsseen conditions, or other drivers. Can't happen. If you want gaurentteed operation, you need controlled conditions.
Re:GPL (Score:3, Interesting)
Fear and greed, and a lack of compassion. That is what causes these things.
Let's say theoretically, someone goes to a restaurant, orders a cup of coffee, and the lid isn't put
Re:GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, I was alluding to that, just because it is so well known. But I didn't want to use it as an example for that reason. But in general, lawsuits have dehumanized us.
Re:GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Giving a book away for free does not indemnify the author of accountability for its content. Were I to claim you like whipped cream and underage barnyard animals in an unnatural manner that might well be actionalbe as libel (assuming the claim were false), depsite this post being distributed freely.
Nothing is ever our fault, we muyst always find someone else to hold responsible for problems that we should be tough enough and capable enough to not get into or
Re:GPL (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes. Because the average BBC columnist has neither the time nor the experience to audit every single OSS application on his computer. OSS has an advantage that the source is there, but many OSS writers think that it means they don't have to guarantee their software - after all, they can see that it's safe. The user's rights include the right to use safe code, and free programs (in either sense) don't relieve the programmer of the responsibilit
Keyword (Score:5, Insightful)
No guarantees (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No guarantees (Score:5, Interesting)
What this guy is complaining about is the fact that he expects consumer level software to come with the same quality of proffessional level software. It's a bit idealistic and unreasonable.
If you aren't willing to pony up the money for quality, you shouldn't complain about the quality of the what you get.
Bullshit. There's always an option (Score:5, Insightful)
There are companies that make solutions like this, IBM is one of them. You can get a mainframe setup to do database work that will never go down, ever. However it'll be expensive as hell, you will run the DB and ONLY the DB on it, it will be accessed only in rigidly controlled ways, etc.
Re:Guarantee is spelled "liability insurance"... (Score:3, Interesting)
"life critical" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"life critical" (Score:2)
Re:Keyword (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Keyword (Score:3, Interesting)
Sort of. I was thinking along the lines of what if the acid was mislabeled by the teacher? That's more akin to someone setting up software but not configuring proper security around it.
All she has to remember is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All she has to remember is... (Score:4, Funny)
-Jesse
Re:All she has to remember is... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:All she has to remember is... (Score:2)
I'm a little behind on my l33t-speak, but... how do you pronounce "hzsoa"?
Sure thing, we'll get right on that (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Sure thing, we'll get right on that (Score:2)
Such liability would be rather impractical. To continue with bad analogies about books and such.... What if?:
- The writer of the book had to learn a new language every month.
- The writed received updates on new means of spelling existing words every week o
you don't "license" use of a book (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a lot of crap out there about companies liking proprietary software because it gives them someone to sue when the software breaks catastrophically. That Microsoft has about a $40 billion dollar war chest, earned almost entirely through the sale of very broken software, pokes some big holes in that theory.
You're getting software for free. Don't bitch about indemnity in the license.
Re:you don't "license" use of a book (Score:5, Insightful)
So basically, if you want software that's guaranteed, you're going to have to do a few things.
A) Pay someone a whole lot of money to write it.
B) Test the hell out of it before it gets put in place.
C) Realize that this is going to take a long time
D) Probably pick some very specific hardware for it to function with, and not have the option to easily upgrade in the future.
E) Make sure you get all the feature requests and whatnot right the first time, because patches and stuff are not going to be easy or cheap.
The market, for the most part, has opted for halfway broken software for a couple reasons. Upfront costs, freedom to grow/update/expand more easily, and because brokenass Windows was good enough for a lot of stuff. Hardware increases allowed significant boosts in productivity, and to a large degree, software was just sort of along for the ride. Now that commodity hardware offers so much power that the drive to upgrade is much less of a factor, it might make more sense to focus more on software quality.
Re:you don't "license" use of a book (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:you don't "license" use of a book (Score:2)
people so thoroughly believe that it's a contract/agreement that they will defend it with their lives.
education is the only way to counter this.
tell a friend and pass it on.
or tell millions of friends on
Re:you don't "license" use of a book (Score:2)
I mean, there are limits to the agreement... I don't think you can put in your EULA "by using this software, your employer agrees to pay me one million dollars every year". Employees of companies agree to EULAs constantly and don't have to consult their legal departments usually, so they can't hold that much weight. But D Zamos went through a lot of headache over a EULA,
Separate Coding and Liability (Score:5, Insightful)
The solution, I think, is that the realms of coding and of liability need to be separated. Let the coders code and let service companies such as IBM work together with them to provide support and, if needed, liability for customers that need it. This is exactly what happens when IBM "sells" Linux to Wallstreet, for example. They sell the kind of responsibility for the software that individual developers could by no means provide.
Re:Separate Coding and Liability (Score:3, Interesting)
no other industry on the face of this earth (except politicians) can sell you stuff and not be liable for it causing harm.
if you are a merchant, you are liable. if you stand on a street corner (or virtual corner) and give it away then your liability is orders of magnitude less (read: zero).
Typical Big Government Response (Score:4, Insightful)
No, I do not believe that everyone should be left to fend for themselves without ANY regulation. If someone produces a medication and makes a claim that a patient considered reasonable, and they get more ill or die as a result, then the company should be held accountable. But to make every fucking business activity subject to error and omission insurance will wreak holy hell on our economy. E&O insurace requirements will guarantee that
1) software development will slow,
2) software for process control will halt due to liability questions,
3) make lawyers and insurance companies rich,
all without one single shred of evidence that any of these effects actually made software development any *better*.
When I install software, especially for the first time, I do NOT have it on my production machine. Why do people like Thompson like doing things like this? Why should a software publisher spend heavily to debug (and still not get EVERYTHING) in a manner that *assures* the E&O insurer that it will not delete Mr. Thompson's latest mp3?
Re:Typical Big Government Response (Score:2)
What I'd like to see...(or maybe not) (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:How is it proven??? (Score:3, Informative)
No, the point of a journaled file system is to maintain the consistency of a file system even if the system shuts down unexpectedly. This is done by wr
Re:Typical Big Government Response (Score:2)
Re:Typical Big Government Response (Score:2)
There are a lot of companies who develop software using the cheapest(often least experienced as well) labor and manage the development based on the release date, with reckless disregard for the features or stability of the product. People that do not understand software assume that all software is either unreliable (like their desktops) or fabulously expensive (mainframes). These peop
Re:Typical Big Government Response (Score:2)
Boy, if that isn't the key fact in this whole sorry tale. I only put stuff on my production machines that I know will not crash it every day. I also keep my data away from all of my machines on a separate storage array.
People like Thompson love a zero risk world when it comes to something they believe they can control. But don't get on the freeway with these people because they are generally also the people who
Re:Typical Big Government Response (Score:2)
Wow (Score:2, Insightful)
And... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong...bugs suck, but suing someone over it is as equally bad as releasing buggy software.
am I evil? (Score:2)
Solution in the article (Score:2)
Boring old institutional engineering is the answer once again.
"Ahh yes," counters the Industry, (Score:5, Funny)
"Oh, I hadn't thought of that," says the commentator whose argument proceeds to disappear in a puff of reality.
Meanwhile, Industry, rather content with itself, goes on to prove that black is white and white is black and is sued into oblivion by the DMCA.
Where do you draw the line? (Score:2)
Unlike cars, any given computer software is absolutely identical. So one d
Sure you can sue (Score:2, Informative)
Put yourself in the bank's shoe however. When you install an OS or any application that comes with a EULA, you have the choice to n
Insurance (Score:2)
Consumers complain about the poor quality of software right up until they walk into a software shop - then they buy the cheapest product.
EULAs do not provide any more protection (Score:5, Insightful)
From the Windows XP Home EULA [microsoft.com], with caps removed to get past lameness filter: and so on and so on.
With this amount of legal protection, I feel completely safe using Microsoft products!
Market Conditions (Score:2)
Rich
Legally (Score:2)
If a software program tells you to go drink acid you better believe you can sue regardless of what you clicked on.
It's very similar to those stupid little signs on dump trucks. 'Not responsible for objects that fall off'
The hell they aren't. If something falls of the truck and hits your car you can be assured that stupid little disclaimer will offer no protection.
What nonsense (Score:2, Insightful)
But if you give me a car, or if my hobbyist mechanic friend builds me a car
No Reason to Force Costs on Everyone. (Score:2)
Sure something could happen. Maybe firefox leaks personal information or your previous draft of an email to Ford reveals you are talking to GM too in a Word doc.
These are risks. If the risks are serious enough in your mind, you can buy insurance; often from someone backed by companies like Lloyds Bank that have expertise in such areas. But don't demand that everyone pay for insurance.
It is your freedom to decide if you want insurance or not. Don't try to dictate your wishes upon everyone. The costs will
Typical journalist (Score:2)
One argument against product liability for software is that it would destroy the industry by placing unacceptable costs on developers, and that it would wipe out the open source movement in its current form since there is no way an organisation like the Mozilla Foundation could distribute Firefox for free under those terms.
But nobody bought a copy of Firefox, did they? The only way you should expect to have consumer rights is if you actually bought the product. In fact, why even mention free software at
Ownership with out the liablity... (Score:2)
Authors are typically also asked to sign ownership of the copyright over the publisher. So, it sounds like said publishers now want ownership of the IP with someone else essentially signed up to take all the legal liability.
For that latter, they could technically just go to an insurance company for that kind of thing. Buy, why bother
Childish reasoning (Score:2)
"But if a system is unjust then it should not be supported, and an unwillingness to strip undeserved privileges from a group, however noble their cause, is not sufficient reason to maintain the current dispensation."
-
I guess every one of us choose wich privileges we want to "drop"....his argument agianst Open Source is quite handy against any other software license around...they keyword is "you have a choice" and I choose something else.
So what? (Score:2)
Commercial Software's Niche (Score:2)
Su
Well, part of the problem.. (Score:2)
Let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Coding and liability are in principle independent.
When the author assumes liability that constitutes an extra service. What we need is the ability to get software for free, and the ability to get fitness and other guarantees - in exchange of a fee.
Trust Relationships (Score:2)
The argument with the children's book is also a stupid argument. If I write something down and someone fo
Books vs. Software (Score:2)
The real difference is that it's nearly impossible to write any kind of complex software and have it free from bugs. Finding these problems isn't as easy as proofreading because code can function in vastly different ways dep
No Single Vendor is Responsible for Software (Score:2)
Every piece of software on a computing runs atop a teetering stack of hardware and software each layer of which may come from a different vendor. Not even a company like Apple has complete control of their software environment bottom to top. A bug anywhere in the stack can cause a failure. Developers spend a lot of time working ar
Re:No Single Vendor is Responsible for Software (Score:3, Insightful)
Similar analogies can be made towards anything that is built. When Ford builds a car, they don't create every nut, bolt and beam in the car. They probably buy a lot of the parts from third-party manufacturers and assemble them together. This is true for many products out there.
An analogy closer to home, is the system my friend's company puts out. They treat cancer tumors using some cu
Software is INFORMATION (Score:2)
Nobody has EVER claimed that Software (in general) is perfect. Because software is much more like a 3D maze than a piece of wood, there can always be a bug hidden somewhere. This is specially true when most soft
The problem is the all or nothing approach (Score:2)
The problem is the all or nothing approach. What we need is a liability definition that is higher than nothing for paid software (I would explicitly exempt software offered for free, since the publisher is not monetarily compensated). For
Clearing up misconceptions (Score:2)
Wrong. If I own a store and put out a free park bench in front, and there's a nail sticking up, and someone sits on it, I'm liable, whether or not it was malicious, money changed hands, etcetera. Why should software be different?
2. You agreed to the license.
It is accepted in law that this is generally only a defence if you had an opportunity to negotiate the license. If it's presented as "take it or leave it" then the license doesn't really represent a negotia
I'm torn here. (Score:2)
But I do belive if you have software out there, you have a reponsibility t
False assumption (Score:2)
What you do is open the package.
The makers of the software CLAIM that by doing so it means you agreed, but that opinion has not been proven in any court of law.
OF COURSE they are going to claim you do that. They can claim anything they want to. They can even claim that their software is not a piece of crap. That doesn't make it true.
Yes, it will make suing them more dificult, but so what? Lawsuits are rarel
I DON'T believe it! (Score:2)
I'm quite shocked at this:
"I can't do anything when a company produces software that exposes my online banking details to any script kiddie with time to spare, because I've agreed a license that removes such liability."
Yes you can Bill...
1) Don't use any software.
2) Don't use online banking.
3) Don't keep any personal data on your computer.
No software can be 100% flawless!
If every software company was to pay up when a flaw within it was e
Not just in America anymore... (Score:2)
It's good to know that American television doesn't have a monopoly on clueless talking heads blabbering on in things that they do not necessarily know anything about.
This has already been said in response to this comment, but it bears repeating, if only to make it perfectly clear - he's making an apples-and-oranges comparison. When you buy a book, in general, the book contains the exact same information that every other copy of the same book has.
But, to continue with the article writer's (faulty) book ana
A case of bad metaphors and analogies.... (Score:2)
Should you incorrectly state the formula for something mixed with sulphuric acid rather than acetic acid stated in TFA, you might have compensatory claim for your subsequent injury.
Software is used to complete a task or state
Accept the risk (Score:3, Interesting)
We all pay the cost in wasted time, lost files, hacked systems and reduced productivity [2]. Our children spend time in lessons waiting for interactive whiteboards to be repaired [3] while businesses around the world suffer from crashes and security breaches. [4] "
Hey, you know what, Bill? You don't like the fact that you accept the responsibility and risk when you use the software? Then don't use it.
I bank online, not because I need to, but because it is convenient. I accept that there is a slight risk involved. If I only banked brick-and-mortar, and my banking information was hacked, who is liable? The bank, because they CHOSE to use software that is insecure, KNOWING that it is potentially insecure, is who I hold liable.
I enjoy using the internet. Do I need to use it? No. But because I want to use it, I accept that there is risk, and do my best to protect myself.
[1] Not so. How many stunt shows always start with a disclaimer that no one should try the stunt at home? Fore-warned is fore-armed.
[2] We all also reap the rewards of the software. Do our kids ride bikes, Bill? When they fall and scrape their hands, do we send the medical bill to the bike distributor, manufacturer, or retailer? We accept a certain level of risk. If the bike design is faulty, that is a different issue -- but then again, we never signed a usage agreement that disclosed that there might be problems.
[3] Why doesn't that classroom have a dry-erase board or a chalkboard? Why is the teacher incapable of instruction without it?
[4] Businesses would suffer more if there were no innovation in software due to possible lawsuits. Businesses would be better off putting systems in place to prevent hackjobs, to make sensitive information secure even if their system is compromised, to prevent extreme loss of business due to system downtime.
I think it is ridiculous for every tomdickandharry to want someone else to be responsible for the risk that they voluntarily took on.
Software is not a necessity. It is a tool that we use to help us do things more efficiently. The tradeoff for that efficiency is risk.
Fallacy (Score:3, Interesting)
Publishing Licenses are Lazy (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't know about the rest of you, but if she tells me to drink poison in a book, I'm not going to do it.
Bill Thomson == Muppet (Score:3, Insightful)
Idealism and Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Implementing responsibility in software is desirable -- and unlikely.
At the bottom of the problem (surprise, surprise!) we find money. Software development requires expensive human labor and support; the software industry already limits its investment in quality assurance and support. To fully test every piece of software for 100% (or even 99%) reliability would drive software prices spiralling — you would see no free software movement, no open source, and be living with a very limited selection of corporate software at cocaine-like prices. Witness what has happend with liability lawsuits and medicine, driving costs to astronomical levels.
If anything, the success of the software industry could be attributed the its very lack of guarantees. It has few material costs; anyone with a $500 PC can start a software business. You don't need to guarantee your product, and society is conditioned to accept broken software after years of living with Microsoft's badly engineered products. Companies ship erroneous code to customers, knowing full-well that it can be patched later.
Do I think software should provide guarantees? Yes. Will it happen in my lifetime? Not unless society changes dramatically.
Chance of error, proper use (Score:3, Insightful)
Take condoms, for example. They can help protect against pregnancy and/or STD's. They can also break. In a reasonable situation you should be able to expect some safety in using them, if you use them properly. If you think that wearing a condom is going to make it OK for you to head on down to 3rd and Main every night to pick up a $10 date... well you don't sue Trojan when you get a little more than you bargained for, no do you?
Sure (Score:2)
Re:Analogy doesn't fit (Score:3, Insightful)
Incorrect. In the U.S., anyway, the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act provides that if you offer a warranty, it is not voided by third-party equipment or non-authorized dealer repairs unless the device or repairs contributed to the failure. If you replace the ignition system with a new high-powered nitrous oxide feeder, and the