On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 10:30:30 -0500 "David A. Bandel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
| On Fri, 18 Jan 2002 15:54:49 +0100 | Roger Oberholtzer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> spewed into the bitstream: | | [snip] | | > | > 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. | | Well, I have a couple of offshore companies here in Panama, and as long as | it doesn't cost me any money, the programs could be "laundered" through | one of them (the author still retaining rights, just allowing the program | to be moved out of the US and away from incredibly clueless US lawmakers). | | > | > If you can't define it properly, how can you legislate it properly? | | you can't. Which means it will not be well-thought, which leads to even | worse state-by-state implementation of ???? -- GIGO (garbage in, garbage | out). | | > | > 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. | > | | Uh huh, so how do you prevent folks from d/l "foreign" software? Set up filters like they have in countries like Saudi Arabia to keep people from downloading porn or whatever else the govt deems bad. The technology is there. Granted there are always ways around it, but it would really put a dent in things. For one thing, could a company in a foreign country, under such circumstances, charge a corporation for support? Put is on the books a 'Support for that illegal software we downloaded off the 'net.' They could kill a few birds with this one stone and claim that the filtering also allows tracking questionable/terrorist activities. Basically a slippery slope. Make the first law, then add and add so you can try to implement the first law. Keeps Washington busy. Get the public to but the first idea, and then with the foot in the door, get the public to buy more and more laws to make it work. Gee, that sounds like a Washington State company as well. It's Friday. I'm late and hungry. I rant. -- ===================================================================== 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
