An attempt to backdoor the kernel [LWN.net]

An attempt to backdoor the kernel

Posted Nov 7, 2003 7:33 UTC (Fri) by hingo (subscriber, #14792)
In reply to: An attempt to backdoor the kernel by coriordan
Parent article: An attempt to backdoor the kernel

Yeah, hat's of to coriordan (the rms of Europe? :-). We are especially thankful for your recent (and
ongoing I hope) work with the software patents directive. And also for your reporting of it here.

As for the warranty disclaimer, I'm too under the impression that it's not valid in most of Europe. Wasn't
that what a German law professor something pointed out in a study recently? (The story was reported in
press with headlines like "GPL invalid in Europe", which was perhaps a bit too much.)

I'm sure in Finland you couldn't get away with
- sell a piece of (free/whatever) software for purpose X
- software deletes all files on harddisk
- "Not my fault, it says there is no warranty!"

In Europe things are a bit different than in the US, from where we have learned to insert disclaimers
everywhere. (McDonalds is not responsible for the fact that their coffee is hot, etc... Isn't it the point of
coffee that it should be hot? I could understand if somebody sued them for the coffee being too cold :-)

henrik

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warranty disclaimer

Posted Nov 7, 2003 10:55 UTC (Fri) by ber (subscriber, #2142) [Link]

As for the warranty disclaimer, I'm too under the impression that it's not valid in most of Europe. Wasn't that what a German law professor something pointed out in a study recently?

The study you are refering to, was funded by a huge business association where major proprietary software vendors pay member fees. The result was used to create bad press about the legal situation around Free Software and a lot of people bought into it. Read ifross news on it if you want to know the details: Dispute on Legal Issues Surrounding Free Software Intensifies. It concludes with:

VSI's announcement about the legal risks in developing and using Free Software was premature. [..] The new study contains mostly long-known findings.

At least in Germany strapping on a Free Software license is like giving something away like a gift. For gifts you are only responsible if you (a) on purpose try to do something nasty or (b) act very unreasonable. (b) translates into actions that almost everybody would have known to cause serious problems. So you do not necessarily need the warranty disclaimers as the legal situation is already okay.

We should start point out that the legal risks around proprietary software is a lot higher compared to Free Software.

warranty disclaimer

Posted Nov 13, 2003 9:34 UTC (Thu) by hingo (subscriber, #14792) [Link]

Hashes aside, I see that Larry of BitMover has collided with The RMS of Europe. Ouch, didn't see that happening, especially since this is not slashdot. Anyway, too late now.

I completely agree with the above clarifications. In summary:

1. A warranty disclaimer in Europe is meaningless. You are responsible for some of your actions wether you want it or not. For Free Software (as in beer, even) a warranty disclaimer might even be an empty statement.

2. This was nothing new, however some rich and twisted people decided to make a fuzz about it. The headlines "GPL is invalid in Europe" were of course only humorous at best.

As for the coffee thing, if I spillt coffee on myself because I was "drinking and driving" and burned myself, I would not want to announce it to the world in a lawsuit that I'm that stupid. This is the difference with US citizens and the rest of the world. I have no need to defend McDonalds however.

henrik

McDonald's coffee suit

Posted Nov 14, 2003 14:40 UTC (Fri) by Max.Hyre (subscriber, #1054) [Link]

Details of the case. Read before discussing. 'Nuff said.

warranty disclaimer

Posted Nov 14, 2003 21:56 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

1. A warranty disclaimer in Europe is meaningless. You are responsible for some of your actions wether you want it or not.

The second part, "You are responsible..." is also true in the US, and probably everywhere else. The first part, "A warranty disclaimer is meaningless" is not true in the US, and I kind of doubt it is anywhere else either.

In the US, I am responsible for my actions under laws that have nothing to do with warranty: tort law. However, I am responsible for additional things because I gave a someone a warranty. In some cases the law says I give that warranty implicitly, and in some of those cases, the law says I can override that implied warrantee by explicitly disclaiming it.

Here's where freely distributed software comes in: For some of those actions for which I am responsible under tort law, a person may assume the risk from me, in exchange for valuable compensation from me. So in return for my valuable software I may demand from you, instead of cash, indemnity against the risks inherent in distributing software (the risk that through some fault of mine, the software hurts you). Exactly how free we are to make that trade varies a lot from one jurisdiction to another.

And finally, most of the "disclaimers" we see all the time are not warranty disclaimers. They are merely notice that the person does not intend to assume a certain risk, and they serve to defeat ridiculous claims such as, "I would not have parked my car there except that the owner of the building led me to believe he would protect my car."

An attempt to backdoor the kernel

Posted Nov 8, 2003 2:03 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

Thanks for the comments, and to bajw too.

Georg Greve (president of FSFeurope) might be the closest thing Europe has to an RMS, but I'm sure most people haven't heard of him. Digital freedom needs so much work, that people working on these issues usually don't have time to contribute to public fora like LWN. So this leave such fora filled with a high percentage of contribution by armchair generals etc., and I think this sucks, so I make time for LWN, and sometimes lesser fora such as slashdot.

Regarding the enforceability of the GPL in europe, I second ber's info, as for McDonalds coffee, RMS mentions it in this article.

It's interesting that ber mentions FS being a gift in Germany. Last year a law professor proposed a law to forbid the gift transfer of copyrighted material without reasonable compensation. His aim was to prevent musicians being ripped off by the recording industry, but he hadn't realised that this put distribution of FS in jeopardy. Georg Greve, and the others in FSFeurope and another org called iFROSS, got an FS exception added to the law, and FS was safe again. But since he deosn't post to LWN, most people didn't hear of this ;-)