From owner-freebsd-chat Wed Apr 3 9: 6:28 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lists.blarg.net (lists.blarg.net [206.124.128.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E7AA937B417 for ; Wed, 3 Apr 2002 09:06:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from thig.blarg.net (thig.blarg.net [206.124.128.18]) by lists.blarg.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90F6ABD3E; Wed, 3 Apr 2002 09:06:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([206.124.139.115]) by thig.blarg.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id JAA16083; Wed, 3 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0800 Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.11.6/8.11.3) id g33H6mI03313; Wed, 3 Apr 2002 09:06:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@blarg.net) To: Terry Lambert Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Hold Harmless (was: Anti-Unix Site Runs Unix) References: <20020402113404.A52321@lpt.ens.fr> <3CA9854E.A4D86CC4@mindspring.com> <20020402123254.H49279@lpt.ens.fr> <009301c1da83$9fa73170$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15530.6987.977637.574551@guru.mired.org> <3CAAAA98.E9D7EBE6@mindspring.com> From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 03 Apr 2002 09:06:48 -0800 In-Reply-To: <3CAAAA98.E9D7EBE6@mindspring.com> Message-ID: Lines: 26 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Terry Lambert writes: > 2) Imply in law a hold harmless for code placed in the > public domain, so that licenses are not required to > obtain this protection for authors. How do you explain the fact that many lawyer-rich companies have put information into the public domain with nothing more attached than a disclaimer? Many books don't even have that. Do you know of any cases where people have been successfully sued over information like software, where a license contract was not involved? Are you aware that most users of most open source software (specifically BSD-licensed software) need not (and seldom do) agree to the terms of the licenses (including the disclaimers) to legally use the software (as long as they don't republish it), yet few of the lawyers who've looked at open source licenses have raised this as a risk. So I wonder if the law doesn't already imply a hold harmless. It WOULD be good to make it explicit, of course. And if licenses ARE required for hold harmless protection, it should be noted that GOOD licenses are required, and probably ones which don't allow you to own the software copies or maybe to own them without first accepting the licenses. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message