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July 30, 2008

Lately, a lot of people have been asking about free and open source software. If people who write open source software are forced to assume liabilities, they will simply not be able to continue, and open-source (ie: free software) would disappear altogether.

However, most people in the Linux community today seem to think this won't happen, at least not right now (but hopefully never!).

The key in understanding this, and most lawyer or legal professional will agree is that a contractual liability is part of any contract, and with open-source or so-called 'free' software there's simply no contract to begin with, so of course this changes the whole equation right from the start.

Free software wouldn't fall under a "liability regime" because the originator (or its author) and the end-user have no business relationship in the first place. They are simply not sellers and/or buyers. Period.

Some in the Linux community would hope that courts all over the world would realize this without any prompting. However, we could always pass a Good Samaritan-like law that would protect users who distribute free software.

Then there would be a whole new list of companies who provide liabilities for open-source software.

For instance, if a big company such as Red Hat sold free copies of its Enterprise Linux operating system, it would have to provide some kind of liability protection, simply because it is selling it, and not offering the OS for free.

This would simply mean that it could charge more for Linux. That extra charge would pay some of the insurance premiums.

That same sort of insurance protection would be available to companies who use other free software packages. Or would it?

Of course the insurance industry is key to making this work, and this is probably where some will disagree.

Hopefully, insurance companies will be good at protecting open-source developers and the whole Linux community against such liabilities. But time will tell.

Source: eCommerce News.

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