Re: [Fsfe-uk] GPL licence untested, authors could lose their rights in UK

[Ciaran O'Riordan]

Sam Liddicott <address@hidden> writes:
> I remember my old CPM documentation used to say very clearly
> THIS SOFWTARE IS LICENSED, NOT SOLD

I don't think "licenced" vs. "sold" is the issue.  The issue might be
aggravated if cash was involved, but even with no cash, there can still be a
certain mandatory warranty.  (Same as for proprietary software.)

Applicable law (the legislation or case law of the country) might hold
software distributors liable if they distribute software which, for example,
misleadingly looks like it is scanning for viruses, but in fact is sending
credit card and personal info to a remote server.

If this is the case, when the software distributor says "It's not my fault
the user's credit card data was misused, there's a disclaimer with the
software which says that nothing is my fault", the law replies "Yes, it is
your fault, warranty cannot be disclaimed for that".

This is why the GPL says:

 "THERE IS NO WARRANTY
  FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW"

I highly doubt that any non-malicious act of distributing GPL'd software
will ever have a problem.

-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org