RFD: BSD/MIT-like licence with European clause

[Mikko Valimaki]

Hi Thomas,

> In addition to that, in most European countries, there's not only
> the Copyright law, but this droit d'auteur thing.

I'd be interested to learn how does this changes copyright licensing in 
practise?

> Also, rumours
> have it (seen at Heise Newsticker "Bremer Lizenz", for the Germans
> among the readership) that, if you disclaim everything, you end
> up being in "default liability by law", which is a lot more than
> the bare minimum;

Rumours also have it that the practise of liability limitations in 
software licensing has been accepted in European courts for long time 
ago. Anyone can check the differences in European and US licensing terms 
of any global software company's products. They are not that different.

> Till Jaeger from ifrOSS spoke that one cannot
> disclaim liability for malware (eg, viruses or trojans put into
> the code) or work which is others' intellectual property.
 >
> (As far as I am informed, you're liable for these two if you put
>  it in voluntarily, and - if you didn't know about it - if you
>  remove it as soon as you get aware of it, you won't usually be
>  held liable. Please correct me if I'm wrong; IANAL.)

I think you are part right here: you cannot release yourself from 
liability towards the one who actually owns the intellectual property. 
However, you can release yourself from liability towards the ones you 
license your software to (or with whom you enter into a contractual 
agreement).

In general, you are also right in that liability limitations don't apply 
when one acts in bad faith (or with "malicuous thoughts").

>  * Licensor hereby provides this work "as is" and without any warran-
>  * ties whatsoever, express or implied, to the maximum extent permit-
>  * ted by applicable law, except that the work is not written or pub-
>  * lished with malice intent;

I don't fully see how "to the maximum extent permitted by law" wouldn't 
cover the situations you are worried about?

Regards,
Mikko

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