Development of Creative Commons licenses

[Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>]

>>>>> "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 am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, I don't speak for
Creative Commons).

Yes, you might get sued. You always might get sued. 

However, there's a disclaimer of warranty in the Creative Commons
licenses that explicitly says that you don't take any responsibility
for what people do with the work. It looks something like this (quoted
here for clarity):

   2.  EXCEPT AS EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS LICENSE OR OTHERWISE AGREED
       IN WRITING OR REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW, THE WORK IS LICENSED
       ON AN "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER
       EXPRESS OR IMPLIED INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY
       WARRANTIES REGARDING THE CONTENTS OR ACCURACY OF THE WORK.

   6. Limitation on Liability. EXCEPT TO THE EXTENT REQUIRED BY
      APPLICABLE LAW, AND EXCEPT FOR DAMAGES ARISING FROM LIABILITY TO
      A THIRD PARTY RESULTING FROM BREACH OF THE WARRANTIES IN SECTION
      5, IN NO EVENT WILL LICENSOR BE LIABLE TO YOU ON ANY LEGAL
      THEORY FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
      EXEMPLARY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THIS LICENSE OR THE USE OF THE
      WORK, EVEN IF LICENSOR HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
      SUCH DAMAGES.

(The warranties mentioned in section 5 are that you have the right to
publish the work and grant the license to the licensee.)

So I think that limits your liability. I believe that the GFDL and GPL
both include similar statements (also in ALL CAPS).

Am I missing something?

~ESP

-- 
Evan Prodromou <evan AT wikitravel.org>
Wikitravel - http://www.wikitravel.org/
The free, complete, up-to-date and reliable world-wide travel guide