4 ms·

New Zealand consumer law has a requirement that goods must be 'fit for purpose'. This means that if a company sells you a clothes washer for example it must cle

New Zealand consumer law has a requirement that goods must be 'fit for purpose'. This means that if a company sells you a clothes washer for example it must clean clothes, but if you try to wash your shoes and it breaks it's not the manufacturer's fault (unless they said it could of course). I think something like this could apply very well to software. If someone uploads source code to github they haven't sold it to you with any purpose in mind, but commercial sales have functionality promises so they could be held to them.

DannyBee 9y ago
warranty of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose exist in the US. Whether it can be disclaimed is per-state though. (Some states allow disclaiming implied warranties, some do not).
- stephengillie 9y ago
  Ansible has disclaimed theirs[0]: > #!/usr/bin/env python # (c) 2012, Michael DeHaan <michael.dehaan@gmail.com> # This file is part of Ansible # Ansible is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. # Ansible is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License # along with Ansible. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. ############################### [0]https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/bin/ansible https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/bin/ansible
  - JoshTriplett 9y ago
    That's a standard part of the disclaimer for the GPL and other licenses.
  - DannyBee 9y ago
    I think you misunderstand. What i'm saying is, if sold by ansible to a consumer, these disclaimers are completely ineffective in a bunch of states. The UCC (which is what governs these transactions) is model legislation, and provides for a few options that states can choose in various parts. One option allows disclaimer of implied warranty in all transactions. One option allows disclaimer of implied warranty in all transactions except those with consumers. One option disallows disclaimers of implied warranties. Depending on which option a given state chose, the language you are citing would have different effectiveness.
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Why hasn't the open source community figured this out? Seems like a bad idea to ever distribute source code at below the cost of liability insurance. Or should we be geo-restricting open source software? "Sorry, Linux is not available in your state." Thanks for pointing this out. I imagine most people who publish open source software aren't aware of this risk, and will stop when they learn about it.
      - DannyBee 9y ago
        1. If you aren't selling it, the UCC doesn't apply. Most people don't sell their open source software. 2. Most folks are aware of this risk when they start companies to sell open source software. 3. Most do not sell the software directly to consumers, and outside of the few states that don't allow disclaiming at all, most states are fine with disclaiming warranties in b2b transactions, just not b2c. Most don't sell the software directly at all, and those that do are often selling support anyway :)

DannyBee 9y ago

warranty of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose exist in the US. Whether it can be disclaimed is per-state though. (Some states allow disclaiming implied warranties, some do not).

stephengillie 9y ago
Ansible has disclaimed theirs[0]: > #!/usr/bin/env python # (c) 2012, Michael DeHaan <michael.dehaan@gmail.com> # This file is part of Ansible # Ansible is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. # Ansible is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. # You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License # along with Ansible. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/> http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. ############################### [0]https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/bin/ansible https://github.com/ansible/ansible/blob/devel/bin/ansible
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  That's a standard part of the disclaimer for the GPL and other licenses.
- DannyBee 9y ago
  I think you misunderstand. What i'm saying is, if sold by ansible to a consumer, these disclaimers are completely ineffective in a bunch of states. The UCC (which is what governs these transactions) is model legislation, and provides for a few options that states can choose in various parts. One option allows disclaimer of implied warranty in all transactions. One option allows disclaimer of implied warranty in all transactions except those with consumers. One option disallows disclaimers of implied warranties. Depending on which option a given state chose, the language you are citing would have different effectiveness.
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Why hasn't the open source community figured this out? Seems like a bad idea to ever distribute source code at below the cost of liability insurance. Or should we be geo-restricting open source software? "Sorry, Linux is not available in your state." Thanks for pointing this out. I imagine most people who publish open source software aren't aware of this risk, and will stop when they learn about it.
    - DannyBee 9y ago
      1. If you aren't selling it, the UCC doesn't apply. Most people don't sell their open source software. 2. Most folks are aware of this risk when they start companies to sell open source software. 3. Most do not sell the software directly to consumers, and outside of the few states that don't allow disclaiming at all, most states are fine with disclaiming warranties in b2b transactions, just not b2c. Most don't sell the software directly at all, and those that do are often selling support anyway :)