From owner-freebsd-chat Thu Jan 17 13:26:54 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 C13A837B404 for ; Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:26:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from thig.blarg.net (thig.blarg.net [206.124.128.18]) by lists.blarg.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64B23BD60; Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:26:51 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([206.124.139.115]) by thig.blarg.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id NAA30797; Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:26:51 -0800 Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.11.6/8.11.3) id g0HLTH907027; Thu, 17 Jan 2002 13:29:17 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@blarg.net) To: Terry Lambert Cc: j mckitrick , freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Software warranty and liability References: <20020117173804.A4333@dogma.freebsd-uk.eu.org> <3C47349E.E15FA8B2@mindspring.com> From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 17 Jan 2002 13:29:16 -0800 In-Reply-To: <3C47349E.E15FA8B2@mindspring.com> Message-ID: Lines: 22 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 > j mckitrick wrote: > > Does anyone else find it interesting there are lobbyists fighting to > > force GPL software to come with a warranty, while most proprietary > > developers have an EULA that protects them from nearly all liability? It's even more interesting if you think, as I do, that the GPL and BSDL licenses have gigantic liability loop-holes that typical EULA licenses don't have. One may legally obtain/posess/own/execute copies of GPL'd and BSDL'd software without having accepted or even seen their licenses and thus without having agreed to the terms or signed up to the waiver of liability or the claim that the software is as-is and without warrantee. So, free software might alreay have some warrantee, at least in some legal jurisdictions. Actually, I suspect (but have no evidence) that courts would treat free (including public domain) software's liability/warrantee exposure pretty-much the same regardless of what the license says or doesn't say. As to what that exposure might be, the only evidence we have is that we know of nobody having even been sued over such matters. (However, we DO know about the liability of free, open source public swimming pools.) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message