111–120 of 239 posts
I find this article and the reactions here confusing. This seems to me like unequivocally a good thing for open-source devs. Making commercial vendors who rely on open source software liable for bugs is fantastic news, that's how it always should have been. You can't have a commercial company throw their hands up and say "well github.com/cutefuzzypuppy is at fault for writing an open-source npm package we used so har…
I think that this part of it could break either way, but the concern is that when faced with a choice between being liable for their own code or being liable for open source code, most companies will choose to write their own code. If so, that would be a net harm to open source and user freedom. I'm not sure it'll happen, but it might. The biggest issue I see with this law is around liability for open source projects…
At the very least, I think it will have a chilling effect on the production and use of open source.
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Ask scammers to demonstrate the fault using an unmodified copy downloaded from your downloads page. If the can not, no case.
Some bugs are one in a million and may not be easily reproduced. How would you prove it’s not one of those?
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Actually, I may have missed buried lede in this case where there is no company B, and citizen C is harmed by dev A's github project. That is actually kinda concerning, if my MIT license of "no guarantee" won't protect me. Other commenters who got it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38808821 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38808756
That is concerning, but I think the author’s interpretation of the upcoming regulation may be wrong. See here for example: https://www.euractiv.com/section/digital/news/eu-updates-pro... Specifically: “The Directive will not apply to free and open-source software developed or supplied outside a commercial activity. The liability rules apply when the software is supplied in exchange for a price or personal data used f…
But here it is:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/7393...
> With the aim of not hampering innovation: (i) free and open-source software developed or supplied outside the course of commercial activity, as well as (ii) the source code of software, should be excluded from the definition of products covered under the proposal.
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The line is very unclear to me. What if that national park accepts donations/has entry fee expressly to maintain the trail, would that make them liable for accidents or not? The telco has service agreement with customers and it's clear exactly what service it was supposed to do and failed. Where is such agreement for a random github repository? To put it a bit ad absurdum, say user supplies parameter to your math fun…
I don't understand your confusion. If you sell a product e.g. a car and the brakes don't work you are liable If you sell a product e.g. a medical software which calculates and runs your insulin pump and it responds to a division by zero error with injection 1000x the amount of insulin your are liable. You don't have to focus on the how, only on if it was your product and was sold to a customer. Who was at fault (prod…
There's a reference to "Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008", which does not distinguish for-profit activity at all. Just "all poducts on market and all who manufacture and distribute shall conform".
There seems to be some confusion in the comments regarding what this means for people releasing open source software. The article makes it clear that (as the author understands it, at least) someone who uses open source software in their commercial product is liable; the people who wrote the open source code [1] are not. > If a user is harmed by software, the person they paid (targeted ads would count) must compensat…
Can you comment on the part starting with > What if an open source project is used directly by consumers, and causes them harm? The public policy is clear: they must be compensated. It's expressly not clear what the implications here are, according to the article.
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If you use open source you are accepting the license that says that there is no liability. This is similar to going walking in a national park, there is no liability for an injury that you incur. This is very different from walking in a shopping mall. If you fall in a hole on a mountain this is your problem. If you fall in a hole in a mall it's the mall's problem. The article is attempting to create a scare about thi…
> If you use open source you are accepting the license that says that there is no liability. The article directly contradicts this: > What if an open source project is used directly by consumers, and causes them harm? The public policy is clear: they must be compensated. Does it matter if they signed a license or didn’t pay someone? Their business is bankrupt, their files are in a hacker’s hands, or their own custome…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some bugs are one in a million and may not be easily reproduced. How would you prove it’s not one of those?
What specific scenario are you thinking of? Who is trying to prove what?
I find this article and the reactions here confusing. This seems to me like unequivocally a good thing for open-source devs. Making commercial vendors who rely on open source software liable for bugs is fantastic news, that's how it always should have been. You can't have a commercial company throw their hands up and say "well github.com/cutefuzzypuppy is at fault for writing an open-source npm package we used so har…