Daemon's Advocate article

[Dave Leimbach]

Hiten Pandya <hmp at xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:


> 	Although, one thing I know that makes Open Source software a
> 	little hard to accept at first is the usual clause of:
> 	``the author/insititute is not responsible for any possible
> 	damage caused by the software.''  With those kind of clauses
> 	it is sort of harder to push such software in companies where
> 	you would think the author would at the least answer questions
> 	about the software thoroughly.

Ah but all commercial software has the same disclaimer of warranty and there
are many documented cases of data loss with commercial software where the 
company that created the product was not, in fact, held liable for the damages.

Banks have lost lots of money due to Excel bugs and Quatro Pro back in the 80s
but there is nothing the customer can do about it except not be so reliant on
the results produced by a machine.

This is a problem not only for Open Source but an ethical issue that can be
debated until we are blue in the face and still get nowhere.

Dave