By the way, I do think that the idea of having to meet a higher standard if 
you claim to have a secure product is a good idea. Of course, this would 
put both Oracle and OpenBSD at the same level of liability.

At 08:14 AM 4/22/2003 -0500, you wrote:

>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
>
>
>
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---
Dustin Puryear <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Puryear Information Technology
Windows, UNIX, and IT Consulting
http://www.puryear-it.com



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