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The post includes this statement: > I want to acknowledge the hard work across the organization, from software engineers to lawyers, to find a way to give back

by btown 14y ago

The post includes this statement: > I want to acknowledge the hard work across the organization, from software engineers to lawyers, to find a way to give back to the open source community and satisfy the concerns of both. So it seems that this decision was done after careful legal advice was sought. I'd love to hear what the lawyers actually said about this "advisory." Does including an advisory remove liability on the code's creators, much like the "Contents may be hot" advisory removes liability on McDonalds should a customer burn themselves? I asked a similar question in a comment on another link: if a coder were to open-source an app that could easily be repurposed as, say, a search engine for pirated videos, but they included an "advisory" saying exactly what a derivative work's creator should do to obey the law, is the original coder liable? It would seem that the DNC would say "no," but maybe voting law is different from copyright/piracy law when it comes to liability? But if anything, I'd expect voting law to be even stricter... I'd hate to see a civil rights lawyer suing the DNC and invoking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_Ltd http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,_.... as a precedent. "This technology was primarily used for <strikeout>infringing</strikeout> disenfranchising uses." o_o (IANAL)

rhizome 14y ago
if a coder were to open-source an app that could easily be repurposed as, say, a search engine for pirated videos, but they included an "advisory" saying exactly what a derivative work's creator should do to obey the law, is the original coder liable? Never, with or without the disclaimer. The Grokster case did not ensnare any coders, only the business. Knife manufacturers are not liable for stabbings.
ajg1977 14y ago
I can't speak for this specific case, but when releasing software to others (open sourcing, licensing, etc) it's common to run the codebase through something like Black Duck. Everything that comes up as a false positive needs to be checked into and cleared. Everything that's a true positive must have its license read to ensure that any terms of its release are being met. For software that's been released but doesn't have a clear license (e.g. some "Pull to refresh" implementation on Github) it's often necessary to ask the author to sign some form of "no, I really won't sue you" release. If it's discovered that some license was inadvertently violated (e.g. attribution) then it can be necessary to send a mea culpa to the licensor so they're not incensed if someone points the violation out to them later. (IANAL, but I have done this dance before).
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by btown 14y ago

rhizome 14y ago

if a coder were to open-source an app that could easily be repurposed as, say, a search engine for pirated videos, but they included an "advisory" saying exactly what a derivative work's creator should do to obey the law, is the original coder liable? Never, with or without the disclaimer. The Grokster case did not ensnare any coders, only the business. Knife manufacturers are not liable for stabbings.

ajg1977 14y ago

I can't speak for this specific case, but when releasing software to others (open sourcing, licensing, etc) it's common to run the codebase through something like Black Duck. Everything that comes up as a false positive needs to be checked into and cleared. Everything that's a true positive must have its license read to ensure that any terms of its release are being met. For software that's been released but doesn't have a clear license (e.g. some "Pull to refresh" implementation on Github) it's often necessary to ask the author to sign some form of "no, I really won't sue you" release. If it's discovered that some license was inadvertently violated (e.g. attribution) then it can be necessary to send a mea culpa to the licensor so they're not incensed if someone points the violation out to them later. (IANAL, but I have done this dance before).

deleted 14y ago
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