Re: [OS:N:] Another question about Licenses

[Alexandre Oliva <aoliva redhat com>]

On Nov  8, 2003, "Anthony Saffer" <anthony safferconsulting com> wrote:

> I can see your point. I suppose my biggest concern is that of the problems
> that might arise from our customers buying the software from us, having it
> modified by someone else, then expecting us to support those modifications.

Signed RPMS and SRPMS could help minimize this effect.

> Additionally, I've recently seen a niche company offer it's code as open
> source under the GPL and then got sued because "their software" broke the
> clients computer.

Being alive is enough to bring you risks of getting sued :-)  I hope a
court would trivially see that they were not running your software,
but rather something else.  Just like removing a label can void the
warranty of a product, tweaking the software may void any
responsibility the original developer had on it.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva   Enjoy Guarana', see http://www.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Red Hat GCC Developer                 aoliva {redhat com, gcc.gnu.org}
CS PhD student at IC-Unicamp        oliva {lsd ic unicamp br, gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist                Professional serial bug killer