[long] Re: Legal traps in open source

[Alex Satrapa]

Doug.Palmer at csiro.au wrote:
> McDonalds was using superheated water (not just boiling) to get more coffee
> per coffee bean. The result was some seriously nasty burns -- not just the
> sort of burns you'd get from splilling boiling water on yourself.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong with my maths here - they were serving 
the coffee at 180F, which comes to:

   (180F - 32F) * (5C/9F) = 82C

By my measurement, water in Canberra boils at about 97C, meaning that my 
tea/coffee will usually be served at least as hot as McDonald's hot 
beverages ever were - I don't know how to adjust for adding cold powder 
(for instant coffee) and sugar.

I guess the Americans just like tepid coffee.  This would explain a lot 
of the case - to me, "boiling" is approx 100C, not 57C (135F being what 
the article claims is the "industry standard" for coffee).

   (135F - 32F) * (5C/9F) = 57C

That is only a little hotter than the hot water that comes out of my 
taps.  In an aged care facility, they often turn the temperature down to 
40C to eliminate the risk of scalding.

As for having records of 700 other people having this problem - this is 
only a very very small number of people compared to those who have 
successfully handled McDonald's coffee without harm to themselves or others.

I expect a larger portion of people badly misconfigure Samba the first 
time they deploy it (or every time they deploy it), does that mean that 
Andrew and Jeremy have to compensate these people because Samba isn't 
served as "ready for consumption" as Microsoft Windows NT?

Alex