A local school district here in rural Upstate New York is interested in distributing copies of The Open CD to students and community members, but is concerned about "liability" issues. While I personally think that free, open-source software is a terrific thing and understand the implied "take it as it is" terms of the GPL and other legalese, I understand the district's desire to head off any a) demands for "service and support" and b) complaints that "that free stuff you gave me crashed my computer". They would like a concise, easy to understand (by lay users) disclaimer for the CDs that they would be distributing.
I have checked The Open CD's website (http://www.theopencd.org) and cannot find any language there that would seem to fit the bill, but have thought that rather than invent a blurb of my own, I might appeal to members of this list who have either done this sort of thing already or else might know where to steer me for this. Thanks very much for any responses that can shared on this! :-)
Aaron Tyo-Dickerson
What do they do when "stuff I paid crashed my computer" ?
Sorry, that was easy....
For the other stuff, it is normally written in big capital letters in the GPL licence, in the section "NO WARRANTY"
"THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU."
But, so does all the proprietary software, except if you pay a big big load of cash for guaranteed 24h/7 support, isn't it ? I don't think any school ever does pay that kind of support warranty. -- Benoit St-André ben@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Mon carnet web: http://benoitst-andre.net/blog/ Connaissez-vous Linuxédu-Québec ? http://linuxeduquebec.org
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