Liability Issues

email at greglondon.com email at greglondon.com
Fri Feb 27 15:20:14 EST 2004


On Fri, 27 Feb 2004 13:13:44 -0500, Evan Prodromou wrote:
> >>>>> "JM" == James Moore <jhmfa at rit.edu> writes:
>     JM> If I provide you with our 10 steps to better security, release
>     JM> it under creative commons license, and it fails in your
>     JM> environment because of some assumption that we overlooked,
>     JM> then we might get sued.
> 
> I believe that the GFDL and GPL
> both include similar statements (also in ALL CAPS).

Yep, all open source software is "As Is", 
disclaiming all product warranties.

I've seen people prefix medical information with
"I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice"
and I prefix legal info with "I am not a lawyer,
this is not legal advice".

I'm not sure if that is redundant or not.
The implied warranties of Merchantability
(a thing should work the way most people 
would expect it ot work) and "Fitness for
a Particular Purpose" (If I tell you this
will work, I'm warrantying this will work)
would seem to cover professional advice,
but don't quote me on it (I am not a lawyer,
this is not legal advice, remember?)

A long while ago, I pondered the possibility
of having a generic "this is not professional 
advice" disclaimer that could cover all bases:
legal, medical, security, you-name-it.

That would seem to be the holy grail for
something generic like CC, which could be
applied to ANY kind of work. But maybe 
disclaiming Merchantability and Fitness are enough.

If anyone on CC finds out, this is a good 
bullet for the FAQ page.



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