[Xastir-Dev] Re: Xastir-dev Digest, Vol 69, Issue 16

[Curt Mills, WE7U]

On Sun, 21 Sep 2003, Owen DeLong wrote:

> I think it's a non-issue.  I think any user or contributor of XASTIR would
> be protected in most states under the Good Samaritin laws.  Since we are:
> 
> 	+	Not paid for this work.
> 	+	Not providing the software as a business
> 	+	Not claiming fitness for a particular purpose
> 	+	Have no duty to care / Duty to act in the search
> 		(anyone who does already has the necessary insurance)

I _think_ we're probably covered ok in the states and probably
Canada, but Xastir can be used in a lot more places than that.  I
suppose I can assume that since I'm a U.S. citizen, someone in
Germany or Australia can't sue me and try to collect anything, unless
I travel there later?

Open-source licenses haven't been tried in the world courts yet as I
understand.  For that matter, they haven't been tried in terms of
liability here in the U.S. either.  One paper I saw from a legal-sort
said that the courts like to have someone to be able to assign
damages to, and the open-source licenses don't give them anyone to
attach liability to.  They figured it would have to be tested in the
courts before anyone will know.

I'm sure the SAR group I volunteer for has liability insurance, so
I'm covered by both that and by the good samaritan laws here for the
times I'm _using_ Xastir in the field for SAR work.

I'll probably do more thorough testing of SAR features though, to
make sure there isn't any "gross negligence" in the coding aspect on
my part.

Thanks for the opinions so far.  It looks like everyone just trusts
in the GPL.  I guess I'll do the same until something changes.

Curt, WE7U.				archer at eskimo.com
http://www.eskimo.com/~archer
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