Open Source Click-Wrap Notice

[Bruce Dodson]

Here, here.  I agree completely that this would be absurd.  Yet I still 
worry.  Hopefully the law will eventually agree with us on this point.

In Canada we have a "good samaritan" law; I don't know whether something 
like that exists in the USA.  The good samaritan law says that, in an 
emergency, if you accidentally hurt the victim while you were trying to 
help, you can't be held liable.

Although open source development isn't done in an emergency situation, it is 
done by many whose only goal is to help people, and who don't ask any 
compensation other than a nod of recognition.  Wouldn't it be nice if, to 
the extent that open source development is an altruistic act, we were 
afforded the same kind of protection that a volunteer fire department gets?

Sadly, wishing doesn't make it so.

>From: "Carol A. Kunze" <ckunze at ix.netcom.com>
information on
>mushrooms would pass out of existence.   The same would apply to open 
>source.
>If developers are sued they'll stop writing free software.   The idea of
>imposing liability for potentially millions of copies of a program for 
>which the
>developer received no compensation is absurd.
>
>Please note - this is theory, not current law.


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