[OSGeo-Discuss] Liability Issues For Companies Supporting OpenSource Development

Moskovitz, Bob Bob.Moskovitz at conservation.ca.gov
Thu Apr 2 16:59:21 EDT 2009


I wonder if the California State Department of Boating and Waterways support of Starspan (see http://starspan.casil.ucdavis.edu/doku/doku.php) might give you a lead.
 

Bob Moskovitz 
Research Analyst I 
Seismic Hazard Zonation Project
California Geological Survey 
http://www.conservation.ca.gov/cgs/shzp

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 -----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org]On Behalf Of Landon Blake
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 11:45 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] Liability Issues For Companies Supporting OpenSource Development



I'm curious about the type if liability issues a company might open itself up to by supporting open source software development. Let me give you a scenario:

 

A graphic design company decides it will sponsor some development of the SVG editor Inkscape. It puts out an RFP for the functionality it would like added to the program. It sets up a source code repository for these changes, hires a company/individual developer to perform the work, and works with the community to integrate the improvements back into the main development trunk.

 

What legal liability might this introduce the company to?

 

Is there an article or paper that discusses this question? I'm working on small business support for an open source project, and I know one of the first objections I will run into is "we don't want to be liable for any programming effort we support financially".

 

Any suggestions?

 

Landon

 

 



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