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

[Frank Warmerdam]

Landon Blake wrote:
> 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”.

Landon,

Typically open source licenses include disclaimers of responsibility,
fitness for a purpose, etc.  For instance for GDAL:

"""
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
"""

This will generally protect the original author or funder of a software
development from liability for damages.  I'd be interested to hear
of open source developers or their supporters being successfully
sued when operating with such a disclaimer.

Were you concerned about some other kind of liability?

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent