On 2002.07.17 22:23 Curt Sampson wrote:
> On Wed, 17 Jul 2002, Karl O . Pinc wrote:
> 
> > Give it away by
> > putting it in the public domain, or by using no license at all opens
> > coders up to all kinds of problems.... In case you don't happen to
> > know, you can be held responsible for damage caused by your software
> > unless you use a license which prevents this.
> 
> Before I believe this, I would like to see a) the legal argument upon
> which you base this factoid, and b) any examples of cases where anybody
> has been held responsible for the results of the use of a public domain
> object by others.
> 
> As far as I know, there is certainly no implied warranty on goods that
> are not sold. I do not see how there could be a warranty without a
> contract, and since the author is receiving no consideration, I do not
> see how there could be a contract.

All right, I can't resist.  Here in Chicago, a homeowner got sued, and
lost, because he shoveled the snow off his sidewalk and, later,
somebody slipped and fell while walking on the sidewalk.  The homeowner
would have won the suit if he'd not shoveled the snow.
A big stink over this resulted in some sort of snow-shoveling exemption
to the general "I can sue you" law, IIRC.  This may have happened as
long ago as 1980, I forget.  (I assume he was the homeowner...)

Karl <kop@meme.com>