Any written words can be read with good or bad faith. Obviously several of you want to find the most damning interpretation of the TPV regardless of whether it's actually plausible or not that any court would accept such an interpretation. If you look at it that way there'll never be a good way of wording it, all words can be twisted and misinterpreted.
Let's take one of the most used examples: "You assume all risks, expenses, and defects of any Third-Party Viewers that you use, develop, or distribute. Linden Lab shall not be responsible or liable for any Third-Party Viewers." According to many this supposedly implies that you are responsible for what people do with your viewer even in extreme conditions. First off I'm a bit disappointed by the fact that some quote only the first sentence and not the second. It should be clear that they are a union regardless of the dot inbetween. The goal is clear: LL wants to assure they are not liable for the Third-Party Viewers. Now let's go on and see how you can "fix" the issues you see. For starters if we go back to the first sentence it already states that you are responsible for the third-party viewers you use. So you're freed already (as a developer) from any risks, expenses and defects that impact the use of your third-party viewer by others. It's literally there, isn't it? Furthermore the fact that you assume the risks, expenses and defects and accept LL is not liable does not restrict you in passing it on. As we've already seen it's clearly in the TPV that the user assumes all risks, expenses and defects when he's using the client anyway. So if you want to be really sure you just have to refer the user to the TPV and make clear he understands he has assumed all risks, expenses and defects as a user. So to get back to a recent example. Ron states: "Also if some black hat alters for example Imprudence's or Emerald's Import/Export feature to ignore ownership the developer team can be held legally responsible because even though the Import/Export feature was altered, it was still their code at the core and by the TPVP agreed to take on that liability." I fail to see where you got that: - You did not develop it as the code in its original form is ok - You did not distribute it - You did not use it Even in the far fetched situation somebody would try to push for misinterpretation you must realise that the TPV supports the correct interpretation by discussing the prohibited features and functionalities. In that part of the TPV they detail clear enough how an export function can work without breaking any rules. As such if you do follow those rules there's little reason to believe that you face liabilities as you can easily prove that your functionality was considered to be fine for the TPV. I think some of you would've had great careers back when witch hunting was a popular sport ... Best Regards, Dirk _______________________________________________ Policies and (un)subscribe information available here: http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/OpenSource-Dev Please read the policies before posting to keep unmoderated posting privileges
