skap35 Posted May 9, 2009 Report Share Posted May 9, 2009 (edited) http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000...39649689,00.htm The European Commission has proposed to extend consumer protection laws to cover software. In other words, if a piece of software is exploited by a hacker, or if it's run in a poor software environment and crashes, then the developer can be held liable. This is yet another attack on innovation and business in general. Why would I risk developing software (particularly FOSS) when I'm placing myself at such a stupid risk?? Sort of reminds me of AS...I'll continue to develop software for my own benefit, but I'm not going to allow these idiots to benefit from my hard work if they're just going to sue me for it. This quote really demonstrates that the sponsors of this have no clue what software is or how it's created: According to Mingorance, the proposed regulatory extension would cover all software, including beta products, and would cover both proprietary and open-source software. Do these people not understand that beta products are, by definition, in a testing phase of development? I know some of the other Objectivist programmers on here can appreciate how horrible of an idea this is...Let's hope this proposal fails big time!! Edited May 9, 2009 by skap35 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prometheus98876 Posted May 11, 2009 Report Share Posted May 11, 2009 Yikes, that is really diabolical and idiotic. No sane person would want to release/continue FOSS products under those conditions, as of course a great many of the users are prone to do pretty extreme stuff with it, logically it would be the total death of FOSS, which is a shame as FOSS has some merits. And or course who would want to release commercial products as you imply? I wish I could sit these people down and hammer into their dense skulls just how impossible it is to make software that is infallible, due to the simple fact that no programmer can predict just what strange things the software might be expected to do. Car manufacturers don't get sued if people try to drive into walls, why should programmers get sued if their programs are expected to keep running in impossible situations? Its just as silly to expect them to Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Capitalism Forever Posted May 12, 2009 Report Share Posted May 12, 2009 Car manufacturers don't get sued if people try to drive into walls Sssh, don't give them any ideas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AulusAemilius Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 Where do you get the idea that makers of FOSS could be sued? All FOSS comes with a license stating somewhere that the copyright holders shall never be liable for any damages produced by the software, which comes with absolutely no warranty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmr Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 Where do you get the idea that makers of FOSS could be sued? All FOSS comes with a license stating somewhere that the copyright holders shall never be liable for any damages produced by the software, which comes with absolutely no warranty. *ALL* software comes with this clause. The whole point of this law is to circumvent it. "Licensing should guarantee consumers the same basic rights as when they purchase a good: the right to get a product that works with fair commercial conditions." From this article, it seems like they want to dictate what software licenses guarantee. I'm not familiar with EU regulations so I don't know what it means to a company or FOSS project when a user breaks a piece of code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AulusAemilius Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 They're going to have a difficult time regulating FOSS... "Alright men, we just got a lead into the whereabouts of the anonymous hacker who submitted a patch eventually incorporated into revision #80940!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gags Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 The EU isn't stopping at attacking software innovation. They just fined Intel $1.45 billion for "illegal" sales tactics. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-fines-Int...set=&ccode= Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelH Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 The EU isn't stopping at attacking software innovation. They just fined Intel $1.45 billion for "illegal" sales tactics. http://finance.yahoo.com/news/EU-fines-Int...set=&ccode= I'm actually rather upset about this. As a consumer, I am free to buy products that include whatever components I want. AMD computers have been available continuously for consumers to choose! It may be true that Intel paid suppliers to use their products. I don't have a problem with that. That last laptop I bought cost less than I would have expected for the components it contained. It came with many bundled programs that the producers had probably paid to put on the laptop. This reduced the cost of the laptop to me. I'm agreeing to buy the laptop with the programs installed. I erased the hard drive and installed Linux. The laptop runs at full speed, with full capabilities, for less than a comparable laptop from Linux-specific vendors. Windows users are free to uninstall the bundled programs, in fact many review of the laptop recommend this. I'm free to take advantage of the deal available - or not. No force is involved. I see "Intel bundling" as the same type of deal as "software bundling". What are these people thinking? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gags Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 What are these people thinking? I think they see Intel as a goose to be plucked and nothing more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Mac Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 Sssh, don't give them any ideas! People have already tried to sue gun manufacturers for shootings, so it's nothing new. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prometheus98876 Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 (edited) Where do you get the idea that makers of FOSS could be sued? All FOSS comes with a license stating somewhere that the copyright holders shall never be liable for any damages produced by the software, which comes with absolutely no warranty. Oh come on, FOSS would be the among the first to go. Its license would count for nothing in the face of this law, and it has a record for people doing pretty extreme stuff with it. All it takes is for some of these hackers to screw up and decide its not his fault. Note that I use hacker in its original sense, ie of someone altering software and or bypassing software restrictions/rules. Of course, it is probably fairly obvious that this sort of law would produce a new profession, if it does not already exist: That of the professional software crasher. Someone hired by one company specifically to try and crash rivals products by whatever means possible and then suing their rivals. Edited May 13, 2009 by Prometheus98876 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted May 13, 2009 Report Share Posted May 13, 2009 Where do you get the idea that makers of FOSS could be sued? All FOSS comes with a license stating somewhere that the copyright holders shall never be liable for any damages produced by the software, which comes with absolutely no warranty.Where do you get the idea that a license condition can override an actual law, if it comes to pass? No seller or manufactuer can immunize himself against lawsuit by declaring "I can't be sued". Under Directive 1999/44/EC, goods are guaranteed for 2 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AulusAemilius Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 (edited) Where do you get the idea that a license condition can override an actual law, if it comes to pass? No seller or manufactuer can immunize himself against lawsuit by declaring "I can't be sued". Under Directive 1999/44/EC, goods are guaranteed for 2 years. I thought that creators of software under copyright licenses coming with no warranty, that were legal before passage of the law, could not be incriminated for the software they wrote before this new law existed; that is the basic premise of the ex post facto. If only the EU attacked FOSS, servers would simply move to countries less hostile to productivity. Trying to stop large groups of volunteers from writing free text that happens to compile and do things seems to me to be very futile. Abusing commercial vendors, however, is a different matter entirely. Edited May 14, 2009 by AulusAemilius Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmr Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 I wonder how this would apply to companies like sun that have closed/open hybrid products like opensolaris, java, etc... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DavidOdden Posted May 14, 2009 Report Share Posted May 14, 2009 I thought that creators of software under copyright licenses coming with no warranty, that were legal before passage of the law, could not be incriminated for the software they wrote before this new law existed; that is the basic premise of the ex post facto.Is there a reason to believe that such reasoning holds in EU law? This is civil law where the ex post facto clause doesn't even hold in the US. And that would at best cover "copies already distributed", not any future distributions. It's not about the writing, it's about the distribution. No further distributions or further developments. However: your standard average GPL does not, as far as I know, allow them to unilaterally retract permission to copy. The originators of the software would be permanently and irrevocably liable for everything that went wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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