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This is almost sort of reasonable, until >According to Mingorance, the proposed regulatory extension would cover all software, including beta products, and wou
by jackowayed 17y ago
This is almost sort of reasonable, until
>According to Mingorance, the proposed regulatory extension would cover all software, including beta products, and would cover both proprietary and open-source software.
So I'm now liable for that project I wrote in one night for myself that I released under the MIT License if anyone from the EU finds it, uses it, and runs into some security hole?
That's going lead to a whole new brand of licenses that say, "Anyone may use this, unless you're in the EU, in which case I can't handle the liability. Sorry, your parliament sucks."
In fact, I would argue that this law would void open source licenses in the EU anyway.
From the MIT License:
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN
THE SOFTWARE.
Doesn't that imply that the software can't be used anywhere where a warranty is mandatory? The license states that there's no warranty, so you're violating the license by having a required warranty.
- paulgb 17y agoIANAL, but it looks like this only covers commercial transactions. I'm guessing it applies to things like Red Hat Enterprise Linux, but not free as in beer software.
- thingie 17y agoIt's about consumers rights, where consumer is: (quote) any natural person who, in contracts covered by this Directive, is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession;
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- paulgb 17y agoI can't tell whether that would include a "consumer" of free-as-in-beer software. After reading the link you posted above, it seems that a money-back guarantee would comply with the regulation. That should be easy enough for someone writing free-as-in-beer software to offer :).
- thingie 17y agoWell, that's what the BSA director said. The article says almost nothing about the actual proposal. So we have to read it at EC pages here (link is not included in the article, of course). http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/cons_acquis_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/cons_acquis_en.htm It's in this PDF: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/docs/COMM_PDF_COM_2008_0614_F_EN_PROPOSITION_DE_DIRECTIVE.pdf http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/rights/docs/COMM_PDF_COM_2008_..., page 20. Well, I'm not really sure what does it mean.
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- dxjones 17y agoThe govt could go after a software vendor that knowingly sold their "NO WARRANTY" software in a jurisdiction where a "WARRANTY IS MANDATORY". Legislators don't like it when companies try to "undo" or "go around" their legislation.