On Monday 09 August 2004 6:35 pm, John A. Sullivan III wrote:
> On Mon, 2004-08-09 at 13:03, Antony Stone wrote:
> >
> > Do you know someone who has a plausible argument saying that open source
> > software is lower quality or less secure than commercial closed-source
> > software (or is someone simply living under the illusion that if
> > something goes wrong with their FW-1 firewall, they can sue Check Point,
> > haha) ?
> The "sue" argument is, sadly, very powerful among those who do corporate
> risk assessment :-( (financial risk - not security risk)
The irony of which, of course, is that if you try, it turns out that you can't
sue them because the licence doesn't give them any liability.
I'm quite convinced that much Open Source software could be supplied under an
identical licence as comes with most commercial software (in terms of
liability and guarantees, not ownership or copyright), because most
commercial licences simply don't give any guarantee or warranty except for
replacement of the CD you get the software on.
Ho Hum.
Well off-topic for this list, now :)
Regards,
Antony.
--
I think Big Brother is a very good and useful programme:
Socially dysfunctional people take part in it,
Creatively dysfunctional people produce it, and
Intellectually dysfunctional people derive entertainment from it.
If it wasn't for Big Brother, they'd probably all be creating the rules of
cricket or something.
Please reply to the list;
please don't CC me.
