Yes, of course there's a statute of limitations... And statute of repose....

And there are exceptions...

For example, there's the problem of asbestos and asbestosis, for example, where results don't emerge until 40 years later ... And many issues in that area are still being litigated.

The main point is that there's no reason to accept the supplier's self-interested denial of any responsibility beyond a year or two or some fictitious "warranty period". Attempts to define such "warranty periods" that pay no attention to legislated rights are actually illegal in Australia, have been for some time, and don't seem to have scared off all commercial software dealers. As someone pointed out: the EULAs have to quietly admit that (usually unspecified) aspects of Australian law still apply. ie, no specific "warranty period", no no-refund policies, no no-replacement policies, no no-guarantees policies. Of course, there is the problem of who the court-trolls are...
Meanwhile, back at the ranch....where software suppliers are going to rushing away in droves....
Adobe and Microsoft have been charging Australian customers such huge amounts for (usually downloadable) software that it has been calculated it is better with some popular products to pay for a return trip to the USA, stay at a nice hotel, have a few good meals, buy the software at $US prices and return (with frequent flier points) and have change left over, compared with the price demanded for the same software in Australia. Try checking comparative prices in the different territories for software and airfares. Signal that you want to download at US prices from a US site with an Australian IP address and you are usually turned away. (Hence a growing interest in proxies...)
All this and a Free Trade Agreement ?

I don't see Adobe and Microsoft rushing away from that, do you ? Hasn't exactly happened with a rush yet -- and the consumer laws have been in place for about half a century. I guess they could rush to China, where the copyright protection on their product is so strong..

Legislation in Australia doesn't specify a time limit: if a product is defective when sold, it's defective when sold.
That's logic, surely.
I haven't noticed an operating system or other consumer item that heals itself. Certainly XP shows no signs of doing so without help.

Nor have I noticed software companies that sell stuff with holes in it offering freely as other suppliers do, to replace the product with one that works. (Options available are fix it, replace it, refund its cost).

Are you suggesting it's acceptable to have something like: "Oh, defects in our car kill people but on average it only kills them 2 years after they buy it, so let's just move on, folks" ?

The main time limit that applies under our law in Australia is whether you raise with the supplier the issue of it being defective in a timely manner -- that is, when you find out it is defective.

But of course, in a reverse Catch 22 or 23, when software companies keep source code secret and lobby and get laws against disassembly of their code by an "owner/renter", they prevent the buyer obtaining information about the defect anyway! And they use intellectual property legislation aggressively to make sure there's no competition for their defective products.

I think you'll agree that they also often keep defects secret and don't inform the purchaser of them -- something that doesn't look good in most consumer law. Or for that matter, in many ethical systems. (Check yours.)

So: "we own it, we sell it to you, all our previous versions have had defects so this one probably has too, but you can't explore that yourself, and we won't give any fixes after x years anyway because that wouldn't be profitable, regardless of what it does to you, and you can't get a product that has defects fixed from someone else..."

This is a civilised way to behave? Ethical, legal business? Good-for-you free competition ? Lol.

G'day. I'm up the road from you... Next you'll start telling me we have a "budget emergency"... B-).. Australian laws are actually strong... It's fraidy-cat consumers who are weak. The local laws that have to be mentioned in the local version of the EULA include laws on consumer warranties that contracts don't and can't override. Watch ABC's The Checkout or Google the ACCC and consumer warranties for details.
Besides., I own my entries in my registry if I wrote them. I don't make Msoft start sending me upgrades. I was kind enough to let them fix mistakes that otherwise might have caused me harm. So you reckon they want the publicity involved in explaining exactly how many faults and security holes their software had that threatened paying customers' livelihoods?

Hell, with the combined track records for the two areas, you could give all the kids who travel alone in automated cars a gun or two, and reduce any population pressures you might have almost overnight -- better than any group of terrorists...

Fun at school for everyone... ? Drive By Heaven ? The right to bear armoured cars ? Go for it. Too crowded in the cities anyway..

> After EOL, the EULA specifies that there is absolutely no warranty.

Don't know about your country, your laws, but in my country, under our laws, no EULA is valid in attempting to negate an implied warranty under law, and in fact, as I recall it, I think it's actually an offence to say in any sales agreement that there is no warranty... because apart from anything else, that would be misleading conduct...

Since Msoft appears to have sold a product riddled with errors and security holes which has required years of updates to fix, it might be suggested that there is a continuing warranty obligation to provides updates to make the product fit for service? To suggest the customer should now pay money for extra fixes for continuing known faults looks more like blackmail than proper business ethics. Hip replacement recipients have a case against a subsidiary of Johnson and Johnson over defects which poisoned them with cobalt and chrome. Anyone want to suggest they should just charge more for hip upgrades now?

You seem to overlook a small element in the ideas generally applied to market trading and competition: IP rights granted by legislation give these companies a +monopoly+. This is not a free-market operation at all: it's artificially limited on the supply-side by legislation, and all ideas of "competition" are simply BS when the monopoly rights-holders decide they want to get what they can.

The reason the Parliament is looking at this is because many believe that the practical effects of the use of monopoly powers granted are to leave the majority of Australians ripped off by the artificial monopoly. There have already been some variations in Australian copyright laws because similar monopoly rip-offs were occurring in the book trade. It's clearly time for a similar approach to software etc, given the arrogant intransigence of the companies involved.

Meanwhile, you might note that the US has a Free Trade Agreement Yeah, sure! It's the free trade you have when the monopolists decide you can't have any free trade.

Try not to preach market force "competition encouragement" ideas in the absence of a basic limitation on the supply side. It doesn't work like that.

" most times its because the people voted in all kinds of insane socialist laws and consumer protections"

This is on a par with Tea Party religion and conspiracy theory gone mad. It's nothing to do with socialist laws. It has to do with monopolies.... and patent and copyright laws grant monopolies...

And if you look up your class notes on Capitalism 101 and the theory of free markets, you'll usually find some references to the fact that monopolies are not good for competition and free markets. Or haven't you got to that bit yet ?

  Adobe (amongst others) has a monopoly because copyright and patent laws provide that, and with internationalization of the market, they can extend it any way they like -- unless countries like Australia start changing laws and buying out of the nonsense that is involved in this kind of price gouging.

Meanwhile, Australia has a "Free Trade" agreement with the US. Which was partly set up with pressure from the movie industry to protect its copyrights (ie, monopolies) and try to minimise local measures to encourage a local film and TV industry. So what do we get ? Price gouging from a US company protected by copyright laws. So thanks for your Free Trade agreement. Real handy. And hypocrisy at its finest.

It's Every Man for Himself and Whatever It Takes or "Oh, gee, when we said free markets, we didn't actually mean THAT free !"

Currently we'd still be better off buying a return fare to the US, buying Adobe software there, coming back with about $600 saved on price, and a heap of frequent-flier points from an airline.

Meanwhile, thanks for the GFC. We've been fortunate in Australia to avoid most of its effects because we had (guess what ?) silly old consumer protection for investors and bank depositors that prevented funds going into the silly investment scams. And we also had and have what you would probably regard as "socialist": a national superannuation scheme that provided financial liquidity to our banks as a buffer against international rate fluctuations.

About time you got some of that nasty consumer protection. Every now and then, it's good for you.

Have you turned all your roads into tollways yet?

Learn that spelling varies between different countries, and you may find maturity.

Socialised science came up with an amazing collection of things that probably keep you alive and fed today... so if you don't like it, go back to eating pesticide-ridden food and having planes crash all over your suburb.... two things the rest of the world can avoid because of the CSIRO.

That's your right, just as it's your right to delude yourself and keep paying insurance companies through the nose for your so-called existing health "scheme" that costs about twice as much out of your GDP as the "socialist" public health schemes elsewhere, and leaves about 40% of your population copping the Bessy Smith treatment regime in your hospitals. So much for "efficiency" and "competition".

Stay pure. Buy more Enron shares, soon as you can.