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Re: [News] Make Commercial Software Liable for Damages, Not FOSS

__/ [ Robert Newson ] on Monday 05 June 2006 10:05 \__

> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 
> ...
> 
>> | I presume there would be some exemption for open source, just as the
>> | United States has a "good Samaritan" law protecting doctors who help
>> | strangers in dire need. Companies could also make a business wrapping
>> | liability protection around open source software and selling it, much
>> | as companies like Red Hat wrap customer support around open source
> 
> How's about liability based on ability to fix - the harder for someone [end
> user] to fix, the greater the liability?
> 
> Thus Open Source, where the user has the source code available, would have
> a much lower liability by the provider (as the user could get a fix done
> fairly easily), than Closed Source, propriety software, whereby only the
> original authors/publishers have the source code available.

That's an interesting perspective to take. I doubt any user will be expected
to patch holes (without getting exposed to others, or even break software as
a consequent side-effect). That said, there ought to be laws such as: if the
vendor has not patched the hole within 7 days and an exploit caused damages,
the vendor will be fined for negligence (or in the case of Microsoft --
arrogance).

Best wishes,

Roy

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