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Public Domain Python

Grant Griffin g2 at seebelow.org
Wed Sep 13 03:37:09 EDT 2000 
Neil Hodgson wrote:
> 
...
>    It is possible to be sued for software you have placed in the public
> domain although I haven't heard of a case. Possible grounds would include
> releasing material you have no rights to (such as incorporating some other
> software) causing some direct mischief (such as releasing a virus) and
> possibly being negligent (here's my neat pacemaker code. Oh it crashed - too
> bad).

I agree that liability is probably the most common and compelling reason
not to.  However, as you suggest nobody seems to have heard of such a
case, and it seems pretty unlikely.

IANAL, but it strikes me that if one were to put in the usual
disclaimers of warranty into public domain code, any "injured" plaintiff
would have a hard time explaining why he couldn't read and follow that
sensible advice, and why he couldn't scrutinize and/or fix any code he
really depended on.  For example, in the pacemaker case, any pacemaker
manufacturer who used open-source code without reviewing it line-by-line
and thoroughly testing it surely would be (on a common-sense basis) the
negligent party, not the author of the code.

Therefore, if people like public-interest places like CNRI could ever
donate to the public the last 0.000001% of legal protection they wield
by holding the copyright, releasing software as "public domain" with a
disclaimer would seem to be a reasonable solution.  (Of course, lawyers
would advise against this: "public domain" provides no employment for
lawyers. ;-)

...
>    I'd expect the best way for CNRI to maximise their safety would be to
> sell the code to Guido/BeOpen who then do the release and take full
> responsibility for it. Unless that was seen as fraudulently passing a
> liability to a shell entity, they'd then be free of worry. Safest to never
> release at all ;)

Yup.  People who can't stand the nanoscopic liability incurred by
producing free/open software should keep their dangerous software to
themselves.

the-only-thing-more-toxic-than-software-is-tort-law-ly y'rs

=g2
-- 
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
Publisher of dspGuru                           http://www.dspguru.com
Iowegian International Corporation	      http://www.iowegian.com
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