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I've long thought that the different liability regime is a big part of that. In just about any business that is not software, it's much harder for a commercial
by _delirium 12y ago
I've long thought that the different liability regime is a big part of that. In just about any business that is not software, it's much harder for a commercial vendor to completely disclaim all liability via a boilerplate contract. At the very least some basic liability attaches when you ship a seriously defective product: if it's not even remotely fit for the advertised purpose, has failure modes bad enough to be negligent, etc. But the way the existing doctrines have been applied to the software: 1) are quite deferential to EULAs; and 2) de-facto raise the bar for "negligence" to something approaching intentional malfeasance or fraud.
(The economic effects of the different liability regime might be good or bad, but it's quite striking how doctrines that are well-understood in other areas are applied so differently to software.)
- davidw 12y agoThat's a good point, but I still think it's tricky: we're talking about OpenSSL here. Making contributors liable for defects in open source software would have some very, very negative effects: we would not even have an OpenSSL to complain about.
- VLM 12y agoAnd thats why some are pushing for it. I don't like what they're doing, but its not like they don't understand their own actions.
- x0x0 12y agoopenssl didn't ship to end users; it's the software that goes to end users that should bear liability
- davidw 12y agoThat's a pretty much impossible distinction to make.