The application of local law is a different matter. There is generally no reason to specify it in a license. Software with a mandated back-door or key-escrow arrangement in its implementation can certainly be open-source unless there is a legal prohibition of disclosing such code, in which case it is not open-source, is it (and that action may be in violation of an open-source license, but that’s a different matter). Disclaimers and statements of warranty are different, although some licenses require that disclaimers be preserved. It is one thing to disclaim software as unsuitable for use in situations where there are hazards to life and property, such as nuclear reactor control software or pacemaker devices, and another to have the software be open-source. The famous Java disclaimer about life-threatening situations is a disclaimer. The obligation to perpetuate the disclaimer is part of a licensing arrangement around the Java trademark and certification process, and doesn’t have anything to do with open-source licensing. The OpenJDK is under GPL2 with a class-path exception, so there is explicitly no warranty whatsoever for any use whatsoever. The special Java disclaimer is not present. (See http://hg.openjdk.java.net/jdk9/jdk9/jdk/file/2df45ac1bf49/LICENSE. - Dennis From: Dirk-Willem van Gulik [mailto:di...@webweaving.org] Sent: Wednesday, July 2, 2014 01:46 To: community@apache.org Cc: David Welton Subject: Re: Government License Op 2 jul. 2014, om 10:33 heeft Greg Stein <gst...@gmail.com <mailto:gst...@gmail.com> > het volgende geschreven:
[ … ] But I think the situation around this is a bit more complex there - and I think, we, as a community, should cut developers a bit more slack. As there you run into the issue that local laws, legislation and regulation. Which can force developers in specific communities to be cautious for certain areas. A well known one is software used in nuclear installations; others are medical (in quite a few countries), military (in very few) and aviation (decreasingly the case). Dw.
