[OSGeo-Discuss] Liability Issues For Companies Supporting Open Source Development

[Landon Blake]

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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