Question regarding a new local license approach
Chuck Swiger
chuck at codefab.com
Thu Mar 10 10:30:54 UTC 2005
On Mar 10, 2005, at 5:11 AM, Walter van Holst wrote:
> On top of that,
> in order to limit liability and warranties (oh, and BTW, there is no
> difference between warranties, implied warranties and guarantees in
> Dutch law, it is all either a guarantee or it isn't), you need a
> contract. It is just impossible to have a user surrender rights to
> claim damages by using a bare license.
What about CDDL clause #5:
"5. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY.
COVERED SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED UNDER THIS LICENSE ON AN AS IS BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
WITHOUT LIMITATION, WARRANTIES THAT THE COVERED SOFTWARE IS FREE OF
DEFECTS, MERCHANTABLE, FIT FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGING.
THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE COVERED
SOFTWARE IS WITH YOU. SHOULD ANY COVERED SOFTWARE PROVE DEFECTIVE IN
ANY RESPECT, YOU (NOT THE INITIAL DEVELOPER OR ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTOR)
ASSUME THE COST OF ANY NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION. THIS
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY CONSTITUTES AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS LICENSE.
NO USE OF ANY COVERED SOFTWARE IS AUTHORIZED HEREUNDER EXCEPT UNDER
THIS DISCLAIMER."
Is this invalid under Dutch law, meaning that it is impossible to use
software covered by this license?
> There has to be a point where
> the user can agree to the license or not (and there are restrictions
> on the extent to which those rights can be surrendered in a contract).
I write and publish open source software, just like many other people
on this list who are developers. I make that software available for
free, and in return I expect a disclaimer from warranty much as the
CDDL has above. If your country's law does not permit that to take
place without having a contract signed between the two parties, I guess
that means people there are being excluded from a lot of Open Source
Software...?
--
-Chuck
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