On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 3:45 PM, Ken Arromdee arrom...@rahul.net wrote:
On Fri, 3 Jun 2011, Yaroslav Halchenko wrote:
4. The software has been designed for research purposes only and has not
been approved for clinical use. It has not been reviewed or approved by
the
Food and Drug Administration or by any other agency. You acknowledge and
agree
that clinical applications are neither recommended nor advised.
Since it seems to be just an advisory, I think it should be ok
5. You are responsible for purchasing any external software that may be
required for the proper running of this software. You also agree that
you are
solely responsible for informing your sublicensees, including without
limitation your end-users, of their obligations to secure any such
required
permissions. You further agree that you are solely responsible for
determining
and divulging the viral nature of any code included in the software.
ok
It seems like a lot of people disagree with me on this subject, but this
type of clause looks funny to me. What if someone doesn't want to
acknowledge #4 or agree with #5 but still wants to use the software?
Wouldn't
that prohibit him from doing so?
This sounds like it's asking for payment to use the software with the
payment being you must acknowledge and agree to things that would make it
harder for you to sue us. Certainly a direct statement you can use the
software as long as you never sue us wouldn't fit the DFSG; why would
an indirect you can only sue us at a disadvantage fit them?
I've seen plenty of software in Debian with a clause similar to #4,
usually phrased something like $foo 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. I
don't see how it could make a difference that this license names one
particular purpose that the authors don't guarantee that the software
is fit for.
What does the hypothetical person who doesn't want to agree to #5
want? He wants to use the software, and he also wants the software's
original author to purchase for him any other software that it
requires, and inform his sub-licensees of the need for such software
(by some other method than letting them read the license)?
I don't know what the software does or anything about the viral
nature that you're supposed to determine and divulge, but the rest of
what you quoted seems like a more verbose version of some pretty
standard disclaimers.
-PJ
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