Debian and SqueakL revisited again...(was Re: Debian source package)

John Hinsley jhinsley at telinco.co.uk
Fri Oct 26 04:12:31 UTC 2001


Duane Maxwell wrote:
> 
> On Thursday, October 25, 2001 6:21 PM, Andrew C. Greenberg wrote
> > On Thursday, October 25, 2001, at 08:19  PM, Lex Spoon wrote:
> >
> > > The main problem Debian has with Squeak-L is the indemnification clause,
> > > not the "non-free" parts.  Would you not be worried yourself about
> > > agreeing to such a clause?
> >
> > No.  I would expect anybody who let me play with their code for free, so
> > that I was free to do anything I wanted to do with it -- including using
> > it to cause damage or infringe, would expect me to hold them harmless
> > when THEY got sued for MY conduct.
> 
> I agree completely.  You often hear the OSS community whining about how some
> software house should release their abandoned code base as OSS (cf. BeOS,
> Amiga, OpenMail, etc.) .  In today's litigious environment, no sane company
> would do so unless they were able to at least raise some indemnification
> barrier to protect them, so I would expect clauses like this one, and ones
> that are more or less required by XYZ country's export restrictions to be
> pretty much standard in anything that somehow manages to get released.

Now, perish the tort ;-) I don't want to get involved in arguments with
lawyers, but the GPL states:

8. 
If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain
countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original
copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an
explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries,
so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus
excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if
written in the body of this License. 

(Which might cover the export restriction stuff)

and 

11. 
BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR
THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN
OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES
PROVIDE THE PROGRAM ``AS IS'' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER
EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE
ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH
YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL
NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. 

12. 
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, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM
(INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED
INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF
THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR
OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. 

Which seems to me to cover the indemnity stuff adequately. 

/stuff about exobox snipped/

Cheers

John


-- 
If you don't care about your data, like file systems which automagically
destroy themselves and have money to burn on 3rd party tools to keep
your
system staggering on, Microsoft (tm) have the Operating System for you.




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