full-disclosure - GOOD: A legal fix for software flaws?

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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0308290855250.22885-100000@gilmore.ael.be>
From: alexandre.dulaunoy at ael.be (Alexandre Dulaunoy)
Subject: GOOD: A legal fix for software flaws?

On Fri, 29 Aug 2003, Darren Reed wrote:

> In some mail from Valdis.Kletnieks@...edu, sie said:
> > 
> > There's just one little problem with your logic:
> > 
> > Unless the law specifically prohibits disclaimer of liability, there's no=
> > thing
> > illegal about a clause that does so.  And in the best "be careful what yo=
> > u wish
> > for, as you may get it", you might want to go back and re-read clause 11 =
> > and 12
> > of the GPL, Version 2, and ask yourself if *ANY* GPL'ed software would ge=
> > t
> > released if that clause was illegal.  If it was in fact illegal to discla=
> > im
> > liability, clause 7 would totally prohibit you from distributing it *AT A=
> > LL*.
> > 
> > Then there's the issue of mom-n-pop software shops and small consulting
> > firms - they can't hide behind a "we're giving it away for free" clause i=
> > n the
> > hypothetical law, but they'd be insane to stay in business without softwa=
> > re
> > liability insurance.   How many insurance companies are offering *THAT*
> > at rates a 2-5 person consulting firm can afford?
> 
> I, for one, would not cry if the law made it impossible to sell or
> provide GPL'd software to people because it could not be provieded
> with a disclaimer.

For your information, the GNU  General Public License is applicable in
the act of distribution. 

Th  warranty can  be an  additional contract  between the  buyer  of a
service and the  consulting firm. The GNU General  Public License is a
method  to protect  the four  freedoms of  free software.  It's  not a
method to define a warranty...

> Sooner or later the software industry needs to grow up and take
> responsibility for the crap that it unloads onto the world,
> pretending it to be a product worth using.  GPL software especially.

Don't mix the license used and the quality of a software product, this
is not linked. They are crappy software under the GNU GPL and they are
excellent software under the GNU GPL. 

thanks,

adulau.

-- 
-- 	  	     Alexandre Dulaunoy (adulau) -- http://www.foo.be/
-- 	   http://pgp.ael.be:11371/pks/lookup?op=get&search=0x44E6CBCD
-- 	   "Knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance
-- 				  that we can solve them" Isaac Asimov