Bottomley: Solving the Looming Developer Liability Problem [LWN.net]

Bottomley: Solving the Looming Developer Liability Problem

Posted Dec 14, 2023 13:59 UTC (Thu) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Bottomley: Solving the Looming Developer Liability Problem by pizza
Parent article: Bottomley: Solving the Looming Developer Liability Problem

You have to require the user to obtain and install the software themselves, and you cannot direct them to the software to install - they've got to find it themselves.

It means (for example) that if you sell a laptop with no OS installed, you're not on the hook for anything other than the firmware; if you sell the laptop with ChromeOS preinstalled, you're on the hook for ChromeOS. Sell a bare phone with no software at all (not even a bootloader), and you're not on the hook under the CRA: pre-install Android, and you're on the hook for the entire pre-installed OS and all its parts. Tell the user how to install Android on the phone, and now you're on the hook for the variant on Android you tell them to install.

And yes, this is a loophole; the point is that a device with software is more valuable to the end user than a device without software, and you're not (for example) going to sell a car that needs software and tell the user "yep, you've got the hardware, go build or find the software elsewhere". Even if you do, many people will then buy the software themselves, and if they buy from an EU supplier, that supplier is on the hook.

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Bottomley: Solving the Looming Developer Liability Problem

Posted Dec 14, 2023 14:39 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> It means (for example) that if you sell a laptop with no OS installed, you're not on the hook for anything other than the firmware; if you sell the laptop with ChromeOS preinstalled, you're on the hook for ChromeOS.

And importantly, if the user installs gentoo over the top of ChromeOS - never mind the fact that ChromeOS is gentoo "under the bonnet" - you're not on the hook for gentoo. You're on the hook for whatever you supplied, and that's it.

Oh - and I guess if you try and avoid liability by saying "Oh, you'll need to install ChromeOS on this in order to make it work" - so you're not telling them exactly what they need - you've now dropped your distributor completely in it because if they mess up installing ChromeOS they can return the device as "not fit for purpose". That really will upset your distributors.

Cheers,
Wol