On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 08:31:07 -0500 Ian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: | DOUGLAS HUNLEY wrote: | > | > -- 14 January 2002 Congress May Take New Look At Software Protection | > from Product Liability For Security Flaws | > | > Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) who co-chairs the Congressional Internet Caucus | > said . "The producers of software should be responsible for any flaws | > that the software contains," especially if the flaws lead to hacking."
MTCW I would be concerned about how they defined responsible. As a programmer I guess I would need some form of malpractice insurance to protect against law suits. Can damages be for more than the cost of the product? If so, perhaps a free product could have to pay $$$ liabilities? Bye bye open source (or at least free to use) software. Something has to pay the malpractice insurance. Who determines what a flaw is? Unless I provide EVERYTHING and the user can be proven to have done EXACTLY what I said, how can I be held responsible? I guess the Indian programmers will really benefit. Once the programming is done elsewhere (out of the law's jurisdiction), just move the company there as well. If you can't define it properly, how can you legislate it properly? I can also see this leading to a whole set of government regulations as to how software is made so that liability can be determined. This could result in it being more difficult to sell software in the US from abroad? Like the FDA does for drugs. -- ===================================================================== Roger Oberholtzer E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] OPQ Systems AB WWW: http://www.opq.se Erik Dahlbergsgatan 41-43 Phone: Int + 46 8 314223 115 32 Stockholm Mobile: Int + 46 733 621657 Sweden Fax: Int + 46 8 302602 _______________________________________________ Linux-users mailing list Archives, Digests, etc at http://linux.nf/mailman/listinfo/linux-users
