Many thanks to everybody for your responses. As I understand, I'll have to remove this code from argouml or move argouml to non-free... or ask Sun to change their license ;-) Am I right? Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> wrote: > On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 07:44:33PM +0200, Henning Makholm wrote: > > Scripsit Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org> > > > > > Or, in other words, it may well fail DFSG #6, because the upstream > > > is very likely to be completely unwilling to open themselves up to > > > the lawsuits that could result from a critical failure of their > > > software when used in a safety-critical system where a failure > > > could wreak havoc over a large geographical area. > > > > But they could protect themselves perfectly well without trying to > > use their license to *forbid* use in saftety-critical systems. What > > they're saying here is not just "it'll not be our fault if something > > happens" - they're saying "you will be in violation of the license > > if you use it for X, so you can except to be sued". > > Actually, that's arguable. The reason the boilerplate appeared in the > first place, in commercial software, was the exceedingly high > potential liability if a court found that you were not, in fact, > allowed to disclaim responsiblity, and someone used it in a > safety/life-critical system. > > Remember, just because it says "No warranty, express or implied" > doesn't make it true, in some places. Conversely, I'm not actually > saying it should be allowed as an exception; it was mostly trying to > explain why Sun probably has that clause, and why they might refuse to > remove it (we can only hope they'll remove it for an attempt at free > licensing, entirely *because* the liability issues could be > significantly different, and merely requiring a positive understanding > that the software is not meant for those uses could potentially > suffice). > > > > (Similar notices are often seen for life-critical systems such as > > > medical, military support, or other similar stuff). > > > > To the best of my knowledge we don't have any such (== trying to > > restrict use rather than merely disclaim warranty) notices in > > Debian. If we have, bugs should be filed against those packages. > > See above; I wasn't trying to imply it should be exempted, as-is, and > I'm sorry if it came across that way. It was mostly meant as context > (especially for folks who've never seen the requirements list for > nuclear-safe stuff). Though I think removing the word 'licensed' there > would probably make it pass, since it doesn't explicitly forbid you > from doing it, only require that you grasp that it wasn't built for > that (and, as such, shifts the liability from them, for allowing it, > to you, for being stupid enough to have not followed the > requirements). -- Arnaud Vandyck, STE fi, ULg
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