At 09:27 AM 4/21/2003 -0500, you wrote: >That's assuming, though, that the company that's selling the software is >the company that wrote the software. If that's not the case, where does >the liability lie? One would assume the liability goes with the party >making the claim of security, but if as you suggest, security is implied >from the point of creation, then I wouldn't know where to guess that >blame lies.
What about The Apache Foundation? Or major contributors to a project? >I still prefer to think of open source software as being on the same >level as something that was developed in-house (like 90% of all the >other software that's ever written). Using OSS is very close to "owning" >it, just as owning your own custom software. > >I have seen some noise about the push for software liability, but I'd be >really surprised if the MS lobby allows this to happen. It seems to be >counter to the push for binding shrink-wrap licenses of the DMCA/UCITA >likes. Actually, I believe that liability will benefit closed software at the expense of open source software. From what I've seen liability has been restricted to cases where a party has not followed best practices or shown due diligence. Of the two, closed software shops tend to have a larger budget for documenting their procedures. Open source software developers on the other hand tend to focus on code creation rather than procedure and documentation. So who loses in court? The open source developer does because he can't produce the evidence required to show that he followed best practices during design and development. --- Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Puryear Information Technology Windows, UNIX, and IT Consulting http://www.puryear-it.com
