Free licenses and warranties [LWN.net]

Free licenses and warranties

Posted May 9, 2003 23:25 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
In reply to: Free licenses and warranties by sethml
Parent article: Free licenses and warranties

Yes, you're right. I am incredulous that this license contract (and others alluded to in the article) have such a ridiculous warranty. Considering that the licensor is probably getting next to nothing in exchange for the license, this is an outrageous amount of warranty to give.

A sane license contract would contain a warranty that the licensor knows of no patents, copyrights, etc., but not that they don't exist.

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Free licenses and warranties

Posted May 12, 2003 18:39 UTC (Mon) by donstuart (guest, #4550) [Link] (1 responses)

To my non-lawyer eyes, that is exactly what the license says. Doesn't the phrase "to the best of Licensor's knowledge after reasonable inquiry" mean that a plaintif would have to prove that the Licensor either knew of a problem or did not make "reasonable inquiry"? Granted that "reasonable" is one of those words that make lawyers rich, this is still not a very strong statement.

Free licenses and warranties

Posted May 15, 2003 23:38 UTC (Thu) by eread (guest, #1918) [Link]

The problem that I see (my eyes are a little lawyer-ish - IANAL) is the "best of the Licensor's knowledge after reasonable inquiry" would make an potential argumentative point and drag people through litigation.

I think you sum it up with: "Granted that "reasonable" is one of those words that make lawyers rich". Why leave the hole open? Why risk that an inferior-court judge is going to rest his decision on that point? Then appeals happen etc etc etc. In cases I have read, stranger things have happened (albeit famous cases of judicial ineptitude ;)