On Mon, Sep 12, 2016 at 10:12:31PM +1200, Kesara Rathnayake wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA512 > > Hi all, > > In one of the talks [1] on 2016 Kiwi PyCon (New Zealand's annual Python > conference) [2], the presenter mentioned that GNU GPL's "Disclaimer of > Warranty" is invalid against New Zealand consumer guarantee act [3] which > offers warranty against any goods or services consumed by consumers. > > Does that mean if someone sells a GNU GPL software, is there a chance that > license could be invalid? > > Can the “Consumer Guarantees acts" like these affect the original authors, > even though they didn't sell the software? > > Cheers, > Kesara >
That's a very good question. Too bad it has been posed as truth, or so you seem to have understood the speaker's statement. Usual disclaimers: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice. Further disclaimers: I haven't read the referred act, and don't know NZ law. Nonetheless, the comments below are generic and may as well apply here. And if they don't, I think it's important to try to clarify such kind of doubts. Now, I just watched the segment, and I guess Tim just meant that it is important to know law in general, and how copyright works, but unfortunately made the comment about guarantees, and misread the GPL that you may not offer any warranty as in "absolutely no warranty". Let's shake this GPL thing off first. GPLv2 section 1 says: "You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee." That is to say that any one who distributes verbatim copies of the software may offer warranty. If the law requires you to do so, the GPL does not forbid you to. Now to your question of whether the license could be invalid, this would be in detriment of the consumer, as copyright by default is a "CAN'T". You can't copy the software, you can't modify the software, you can't do this, you can't do that, in some jurisdictions, one might even interpret that you can't use the software, not without the copyright holder permission. The license in the tool that copyright holders use to give some such permissions. If the license is entirely invalid, then the consumer could be in violation of copyright law (usually, civil not criminal offense, but watch out for some jurisdictions and some special cases). Now, if the distribution of the software is done for free, would it be fair to require any kind of warranty? Well, in case the law requires such warranties any way, the GPL is nicely crafted to protect the author as much as possible. Take a snippet of Section 12, for example: "IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, ..." Note the "UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW". So, if the law doesn't require it, the license is advising the user that the author should not be held liable for damages. Now, if the law requires some liability, then, that should be the most that you would have "UNLESS AGREED TO IN WRITING", that is to say, some distributor may offer you extra warranty for a fee. So, the warranty sections of the GPL are there to protect the author from possible liabilities, and it's much more than many other licenses do. Now, if you want more protection than that, you can refrain from distributing any software at all. In fact, there are many other risks today for distributing software. There is patent law, and many patent trolls out there. There are criminal laws against some kind of software in some jurisdictions (DMCA is one example, another one is recent Brazilian law against producing or distributing software that allows for "computer invasion"). So I guess that was Tim's intention, to say that we should be aware of laws that affect distribution of software. Regards. Cascardo. > References: > [1] https://youtu.be/S-Le3PWHqZA?t=696 > [1] https://nzpug.org > [1] http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1993/0091/latest/DLM311053.html > - -- > Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- > > iQFCBAEBCgAsJRxLZXNhcmEgUmF0aG5heWFrZSA8a2VzYXJhQGtlc2FyYS5saz4F > AlfWf4YACgkQgbKTpleptaHqZQf8CDLszfO/MJViqm6bicPAr8Icr8OWo78Dvh8y > L7SjR6OKazweH0oheWhZdqoAKSlz3IZkaEW22LmT8OwRY46vWNNPTlP+Q07tmcyG > HKAdKj4a6uvofOGOJYBZSV53ervCXQHj/t3P18ME4jGP1VnZlFUlLpm5kjzxgbuk > fHLFwL6ka/9wpGjdAZ+a4eaooSZIhvYJC1NUs3vlpFARfgN/+W7NzEwPTa3q5fbf > CkH3jdypGOoBJyft4eL3lhNAhO0upFnbexKJrTmOZaKlPj//fA0hoEj4UOQNpNJH > DCEJ909cV7Ab1Cm+/I386ih4UqdkWpzn///xIl3pefy9dMM8dg== > =QCQA > -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > >
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