On Mon, 10 Jan 2005 21:02:35 -0800, Michael K. Edwards <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The exoneration precedent (no penetrating the veil of agency via tort > if there's contract language to cover the conduct) is very > interesting. It suggests that anyone who accepts copyright license > under the GPL is bound by the "no warranty" clause, unless it's > overridden by statutory "fair trade" provisions. Right? You are right, but the 'no warranty clause' is somewhat obnoxious as an example, because it will be overridden. Under Belgian civil law it is not possible to exonerate for every liability. You cannot exonerate for intentional damage (for instance a program released under GPL that intentional causes damage). And then there is some special consumer protection and product liability in Europe that even goes further[1]. But the more interesting aspect of the veil of agency (I like that term - it is quite close to how we call it), is that someone who is not the copyright holder, but worked on the software (e.g. outsourcing with a clause that transfers all economic authorship rights to the contractor), cannot be sued for liability under the GPL. Instead the copyright holder must be sued, and will not be held liable insofar as he is legally allowed. Kind regards batist [1] two European directives that, each in their way, can cause liability: directive n° 374 of 1985 on liability for defective products: if the software is incorporated in a tangible product directive n° 44 of 1999 on the sale of consumer goods, insofar as the software isn't of the quality and performance which are normal in goods of the same type and which the consumer can reasonably expect (off course, the low price for open source software does lead to lower expectations). both can easily be found on http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex
