[long] Re: Legal traps in open source

[Simon Fowler]

On Wed, Oct 30, 2002 at 05:53:39PM +1100, Sam Couter wrote:
> Simon Fowler <simon at himi.org> wrote:
> > Liable for what? As long as they haven't been seriously negligent,
> > they won't be liable for anything beyond the purchase cost of the
> > software - $0.
> > 
> > It's only when they've been grossly negligent that they'll be at
> > risk of being wiped out by damages. Simple answer: Don't Do That,
> > Then.
> 
> How much do you want to pay to your solicitor (and the courts) to prove
> that you weren't really negligent?
> 
> Surviving a lawsuit has less to do with who is right and who is wrong,
> and more to do with who can afford to fight the hardest and/or longest.

True, but that doesn't change the fact that being liable for defects
isn't such an issue for free software. And frankly, the risk of
being sued stupidly is one I'd be willing to take in order to get
the commercial developers heads out of their arses about quality
assurance. 

Admittedly, that's easy to say right now - I might not be so happy
about it five years down the track. But still, /I/ intend to do my
best not to release software I wouldn't be willing to back with
reliability claims. I might be rather nervous about it, but hey,
paranoia is good ;-)

Simon

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