Re: shielding from liability
bruce wrote,
> From: Rick Hawkins <rhawkins@iastate.edu>
> > However, were an individual programmer to incure liability (the only
> > way I can think of off hand is by deliberately caused harm, such as
> > sneaking in a disk eraser), the corporation won't protect that
> > individual.
> We would likely pursue criminal charges against someone who caused harm
> with malice aforethought. However there are negligence scenarios, for
> example a maintainer who accepts a patch without realizing that it contains
> a trojan-horse program. I want to shield our developers from individual
> liability in that sort of case.
I would strongly (though I wouldn't guarantee it) expect the developer to win
that one, given the license. However, I should note that in that case, the
developer wouldn't be shielded by the corporation: the individual isn't
relieved of his own negligence.
> Did you notice that The Linux Mall was selling legal liability defense
> plans for programmers? I would hate to have every developer need to pay
> for that. Having a corporation sounds like a much better idea.
I missed that. An umbrella policy of that type for debian might be a good
idea, though. I paid a bit extra for "First Dollar Defense" on my E & O
(malpractice) policy; as most claims are frivolous, it meant that there would
have been a lawyer instantly standing by that was already paid; there wouldn't
have been any incentive to me to settle a frivolous matter to avoid costs.
rick
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